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The girls went exploring toward the southern end of 

grounds” 


the 


[See p. 36] 


The Ethel Morton Books 


ETHEL MORTON 
AT CHAUTAUQUA 


MABELL srcKsMITH 





THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



Copyright, 1915, by 
THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY 


MAR 27 1917 

©CI.A400n39 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I On the Road 9 

II Getting Settled 21 

III Opening of the Assembly 32 

IV Personally Conducted 44 

V Learning to Swim 54 

VI Ethel Bro’W’^ a Heroine 69 

VII Dorothy Cooks 81 

VIII The Spelling Match 91 

IX Grandfather Arranges His Time . . loi 

X A Chautauqua Sunday 115 

XI The United Service Club Is Organized 127 

XII Old First Night 137 

XIII Flying 150 

XIV Niagara Falls 168 

XV The Pageant 182 

XVI Think Help! 199 

XVII Recognition Week 205 

XVIII In Camp 216 

XIX “My Brave Little Girl!” 227 

XX Following a Clue 238 

XXI “Who Are We?” ....... 248 


1 




ETHEL MORTON AT 
CHAUTAUQUA 

CHAPTER I 

ON THE ROAD 

I T was a large and heavily laden family party that 
left the train at Westfield, New York. There 
was Grandfather Emerson carrying Grandmother 
Emerson’s hat-box and valise; and there was 
their daughter, Lieutenant Roger Morton’s wife, 
with a tall boy and girl and a short girl and boy of 
her own, and a niece, Ethel, all burdened with the 
bags and bundles necessary for a night’s comfort 
on the cars and a summer’s stay at Chautauqua. 

“The trunks are checked through, Roger,” said 
Mrs. Morton to her older son, “so you won’t have 
to bother about them here.” 

“Good enough,” replied Roger, who was making 
his first trip in entire charge of the party and who 
was eager that every arrangement should run 
smoothly. After a consultation with his grand- 
mother who had been to Chautauqua before, he an- 
nounced, 

“The trolley is waiting behind the station. We 
can get on board at once.” 

Roger was a merry-faced boy of seventeen and his 
9 


lo ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

mother smiled at the look of responsibility that gave 
him an expression like his father. Mrs. Morton 
sighed a little, too, for although she was accustomed 
to the long absences required of a naval officer yet 
she never went upon one . of these summer migra- 
tions without missing the assistance of the father of 
the family. 

Lieutenant Morton had been with the fleet at Vera 
Cruz for several months, but although there had 
been rumors that our ships would be withdrawn and 
sent north, which might mean a short leave for 
the Lieutenant, it had not come to pass, and it looked 
as if he would have to spend the summer under the 
Mexican sun. His wife drew a little comfort from 
the fact that his brother, Ethel’s father, Captain 
Richard Morton, was with the land forces under 
General Funston, so that the two men could see each 
other occasionally. 

“How far do we have to go on the trolley, 
Mother?” asked Dicky, the six-year-old, who had 
already announced his intention of being a motor- 
man when he grew up, and who always chose a front 
seat where he could watch the operations that made 
the car go. 

“I forget, dear. Ask Grandmother.” 

“Twelve miles, son, and over a road that is full 
of history for Helen. Grandfather will tell her all 
about it. We are turning into it now. Do you see 
the name on the tree? ” 

“ ‘Portage Street,’ ” read Helen. 

The party made a brave showing in the car. 
Helen, who was almost as tall as Roger and who 


ON THE ROAD 


1 1 

was in the high school, sat on the front seat with 
Dicky so that he could superintend the motorman’s 
activities. Mrs. Morton and Roger sat behind 
them, he with his hands full of the long tickets which 
were to take them all to Chautauqua and home again. 
Back of them were the two girl cousins of nearly 
the same age, about thirteen, both named Ethel Mor- 
ton and strikingly alike in appearance. Their school- 
mates had nicknamed them from the color of their 
eyes, “Ethel Brown” and “Ethel Blue.” “Ethel 
Brown” was Lieutenant Morton’s daughter, and sis- 
ter of Roger and Helen and Dicky. “Ethel Blue” 
was Captain Morton’s daughter and she had lived 
almost all her life with her cousins, because her 
mother had died when she was a tiny baby. 

Grandfather and Grandmother Emerson, Mrs. 
Morton’s father and mother, were in the last seat 
of the four. Grandmother eagerly looking out of the 
window to recall the sights that she had seen on her 
previous trip to Chautauqua, ten years before. 

“Why is it called ‘Portage Street’ ?” asked Helen, 
when everybody was comfortably settled. Helen 
was fond of history and had just taken a prize offered 
to the first year class of the high school for the best 
account of the Indians in the colonial days of that 
part of New Jersey where the Mortons lived. 

“ ‘Portage’ comes from the French word ‘carry,’ 
as you high school people know,” answered grand- 
father. “A portage is a place where you have to 
carry your boat around some obstruction. For in- 
stance, suppose you were an Indian traveling in a 
canoe from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, you would 


12 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


have to carry your canoe around the rapids of the 
Niagara River because your little craft could not 
live in that tremendous current, and around Niagara 
Falls because — ” 

“Because it couldn’t climb a tree,” laughed Roger. 

“Just about that,” accepted grandfather. 

“Are there any waterfalls around here?” asked 
Ethel Brown. 

“Not any waterfalls, but the very land we are on 
was an obstacle to the Indians who wanted to travel 
from Canada southward.” 

“Oh, I begin to see,” said Helen. “They paddled 
across Lake Erie — ” 

“That was Lake Erie we were riding side of this 
morning,” interrupted Ethel Blue. 

“Yes, that was Lake Erie and the gray cloud that 
we could see way over the water was Canada.” 

“0-oh,” cried both Ethels at once; “weVe seen 
Canada !” 

“When they reached the American shore,” went 
on grandfather, “they had to carry their canoes over 
the twelve miles of country that we are passing over 
now until they reached the head of Chautauqua 
Lake.” 

“Where we are going!” 

“Just beyond the village of Mayville we shall see 
the very spot where they put their canoes into the 
water again and tumbled in themselves to paddle 
southward.” 

“Weren’t their feet tired?” asked practical Dicky. 

“I guess they were, old man,” returned Roger, 
leaning forward to tweak his ear affectionately. 


ON THE ROAD 


13 


“If they were,” went on grandfather, “they had 
plenty of time to rest them, for they didn’t have 
to leave their boats again unless they wanted to 
until they got to the Gulf of Mexico.” 

“The Gulf of Mexico!” rose a chorus that in- 
cluded every member of the party except Dicky 
whose knowledge of geography was limited to a very 
small section of Rosemont, the New Jersey town 
he lived in. 

“It’s a fact,” insisted Mr. Emerson. “The out- 
let of Lake Chautauqua is the little stream called 
the Chadakoin River. It flows into Conewango 
Creek, and that loses itself in the Allegheny River.” 

“I know what happens then,” cried Ethel Brown; 
“the Allegheny and the Monongahela join to form 
the Ohio and the Ohio empties into the Missis- 
sippi — ” 

“And the Mississippi empties into the Gulf of 
Mexico!” concluded Ethel Blue triumphantly. 

“Good children,” commented Roger patronizingly 
as he turned around to give a "condescending pat on 
the two girls’ heads. Finding that their hats pre- 
vented this brotherly and cousinly attention he con- 
tented himself with tweaking each one’s hair before 
he turned back as if he had accomplished a serious 
duty. 

“Can’t you see the picture in your mind!” mur- 
mured Helen, looking out of the window. “Just 
imagine all those tall brown men carrying their 
canoes on their shoulders and tramping through the 
forest that must have covered all this region then.” 

“More interesting men than Indians went over 


14 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

this stretch of country in the olden days,” said Mrs. 
Emerson. 

“Who? Who?” cried the Ethels, and Dicky 
asked, “Was it the President?” Mr. Wilson, the 
former Governor of his own state, having been the 
most interesting personage he had ever seen. 

“In a minute Grandfather will tell you about the 
Frenchmen who came here, but I want you to notice 
the farms we are going through now before we climb 
the hill and leave them behind.” 

“I never saw so many grape vines in all my life,” 
said Roger. 

“No wonder,” commented his grandmother. 
“This is one of the greatest grape-growing districts 
of the whole United States.” 

“You don’t say sol” cried Roger. “Why is it? 
Is the soil especially good for them?” 

“Do you remember how flat it was in the village 
of Westfield? We are only just now beginning to 
climb a little, and you see we are some distance from 
the station and the station is some distance from the 
lake.” 

“That must mean that there’s a strip of flat land 
lying along the lake,” guessed Roger. 

“That’s it exactly,” said his grandmother. “It’s 
a strip about a hundred miles long and from 
two to four miles wide, and it is called the Grape 
Belt.” 

“I saw a man in the train this morning reading 
a newspaper called that,” said grandfather. 

“I suppose it is published in one of the towns in 
the Belt,” suggested Mrs. Morton. “I’ve been told 


ON THE ROAD 


IS. 

that some of the very best grapes in the country 
were ^grown here.” 

“I’ve read in our geology that sometimes the soil 
is peculiarly rich in places where there had been 
water long ages ago,” said Roger. “Perhaps this 
flat strip used to be a part of Lake Erie.” 

“I dare say,” agreed grandfather. “At any rate 
the soil seems to be just what the grapes like best, 
and you can see for yourself as we climb up that 
these vines look less and less thrifty.” 

“How queerly they train them,” commented Ethel 
Blue. “I’ve only seen grapes on arbors before.” 

“You’ve only seen them where they were wanted 
for ornament as well as use,” said Mr. Emerson. 
“Along the Rhine and in the French vineyards the 
vines are trained on posts.” 

“Letting them run along those wires that connect 
the posts must give a better chance to every part 
of the plant, it seems to me,” said Mrs. Emerson. 

“Do you notice that the rows are wide enough 
apart for a wagon to drive between them? When 
they are picking, that arrangement saves the work 
of carrying the baskets to the cart. These are the 
days when you have to make your head save your 
heels if you want to compete successfully in the bus- 
iness world.” 

“That’s a good stunt in scientific management, 
isn’t it?” commented Roger, who had almost made 
up his mind to enter the factory of one of his grand- 
father’s friends and who read carefully everything 
he came across about labor-saving machines and 
time-saving devices. 


1 6 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“I wonder if Westfield isn’t the place where Sec- 
retary Bryan gets his grape juice,” said Mrs. Mor- 
ton. “I noticed a big establishment of some kind 
after we left the station.” 

“There are two or three grape juice factories 
there,” said her mother, “so I shouldn’t be a bit 
surprised.” 

“It’s good stuff,” and Roger’s lips moved as if 
he were remembering the grape juice 1-emonade that 
was a pleasant part of the refreshments at the high 
school graduation reception. 

“I’ve never been here in picking time,” went on 
Mrs. Emerson, “but I’ve been told that it is some- 
thing like the hop picking in Kent in England.” 

“I’ve read about that,” said Helen. “People who 
aren’t well go down there and live out of doors and 
the fresh air and the fragrance of the hops does 
them a lot of good.” 

“It’s much the same here. People come from 
Buffalo and Cleveland to ‘work in grapes’ as they 
call it” 

“I should think it would be pretty hard work.” 

“It must be, for the picker has to be on his feet 
all day, but he is paid according to the amount he 
picks, so his employer does not lose if he sits down 
to rest occasionally or stops to look over at the 
lake.” 

Mrs. Emerson made a gesture that caused them 
all to turn their heads in the direction they were 
leaving. 

“What is it. Grandmother? A cloud?” asked 
Helen. 


ON THE ROAD 


17 

Grandmother smiled and shook her head. 

“Look again,” she insisted. 

“I see, I see,” cried Ethel Brown. “The front 
part is water, blue water, and that’s Canada way, 
way off beyond.” 

Sure enough it was, for the car had climbed so 
high that they could look right over Westfield to 
the vineyards that lay between the railroad track 
and the lake, and then on across the water to the 
dim coast line of another country. 

“There’s a steamer! Oh, see. Mother,” cried 
Roger, pointing to a feather of black smoke that 
hung against the sky. 

“And I believe that’s a sail boat with the sun 
on it quite near the shore on this side,” returned 
Mrs. Morton. 

“We must make an excursion some day this sum- 
mer to Barcelona,” said Mrs. Emerson. “When I 
was here before we had a delightful picnic there.” 

“Where is it?” asked her husband. 

“That sail is just off it, I should say,” she re- 
plied. “It is a tiny fishing village, with nets hung 
up picturesquely to dry and cliffs on one side and 
a beach on the other.” 

“I wonder how it got its name,” questioned Roger, 
who always gathered bits of stray information as he 
went along and never lost anything because of shy- 
ness in asking questions. 

“They say,” replied his grandmother, “that Bar- 
celona was the very spot at which the Indians from 
Canada used to land when they came over to make 
a visit on this side of the great lake.” 


1 8 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“The place was known long ago, then.” 

“Apparently. So it wasn’t strange that when 
some Spanish and Portuguese fishermen a long time 
afterwards wanted to establish a fishing business 
somewhere along the shore they chose this locality.” 

“Can we fish when we go there?” asked Ethel 
Blue. 

“If Grandfather and Roger will take you out. 
Or we can all go in a motor boat.” 

“Wow, wow, wow!” 

This was an expression of joy from Dicky who 
was happy if he could go anywhere with Roger, 
happier if his grandfather went, too, and happiest 
if the excursion was in a boat. His father’s love 
of the water had become his, also. 

“Right on the top of this hill,” said grandmother, 
whose memory was serving her well after ten years, 
“there used to be an inn in the old stagecoach days. 
A man named Button kept it.” 

“Button’s Inn,” murmured Mrs. Morton. “Why 
does that sound familiar to me?” 

“Probably you’ve read Judge Tourgee’s novel of 
that name. The scene was laid hereabouts, and 
the drawing is all good because the author lived in 
Mayville.” 

“Where’s that?” asked Ethel Blue. 

“We’re coming to it in a few minutes.” 

“Don’t you remember Grandfather said the In- 
dians used to put their canoes in Lake Chautauqua 
just after they passed Mayville?” said Ethel Brown 
severely. 

Roger roared. 


ON THE ROAD 


19 


“He did,” insisted Ethel, flushing. 

“As if Mayville was built then,” chortled Roger, 
and all the rest of them laughed unsympathetically 
except Mrs. Morton who leaned back and nodded to 
her daughter. 

“Never mind,” she said. “We can’t be expected 
to know every date in the history book, can we ?” 

The town of Mayville, perched on its ridge with 
distant views visible between the houses, and fields 
and low hills rolling away from its elevation, seemed 
bright and attractive to the travellers. The new 
courthouse stood resplendent in the heart of the 
village, and just beyond it the road fell to the head 
of Chautauqua Lake. 

“Here’s where your Indian friends got in their 
fine work,” called Roger who had been going from 
one side of the car to the other so that nothing 
might escape his eyes. 

Ethel would have liked to stick out her tongue 
at him, but she knew that her mother had a strong 
objection to that expression of disapproval so she 
contented herself with scowling terribly at her 
brother. 

“What is the story about the Frenchmen, Grand- 
father?” asked Helen. “You forgot to tell us.” 

“So I did, but Grandmother says that we are so 
near to Chautauqua now, so I shall have to post- 
pone it until we have a rainy evening.” 

“Are we really almost there?” cried the two 
Ethels, rushing to the other side of the car. “See, 
how near the lake is. See, there’s a high fence 
with buildings behind it — a funny old fence !” 


20 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“That’s the famous Chautauqua fence, I suspect,” 
said Mrs. Morton, smiling. 

“Why famous? How long Is It? What’s that 
little tent on the other side? Oh, what funny, tiny 
houses !” 

Everybody chattered and nobody paid much at- 
tention to grandmother although she answered 
patiently every question. 

“It’s famous because there isn’t another town in 
the United States that is surrounded by a fence. It’s 
a mile along the road and about a half mile at each 
end from the road to the lake. That’s a fence 
guard’s tent. What’s a fence guard? A man to 
show the nearest way to the gate to people who want 
to take a short cut through the fence. That’s Piano- 
town. The people who are studying music practice 
in those little houses where they won’t annoy their 
neighbors in the living cottages.” 

“Here we are,” cried grandfather. “Have you 
all got your bundles? Don’t forget your hat, 
Dicky.” 

“ ‘All ashore that’s going ashore,’ ” quoted Roger 
who had seen many steamers sail, and then he sud- 
denly grew quiet and assisted his mother with his 
best manner, for on the platform were several young 
men who looked as if they might be good friends 
if they were Impressed at the start that he was worth 
while and not just a kid; and there were also some 
girls of Helen’s age and a little older whose appear- 
ance he liked extremely. 


CHAPTER II 


GETTING SETTLED 

G etting the Emerson-Morton party inside 
the grounds of Chautauqua Institution was no 
mean undertaking. Roger was still acting as courier 
and he asked his mother to wait until the other pas- 
sengers from the car had gone through the turnstile 
so that the gateman might give them his undivided 
attention. They all had to have season tickets and 
when these had been made out then one after an- 
other the family pushed the- stile and the gateman 
punched number one from the numerals on their 
tickets as they passed. 

“If only you were eighty or over you would have 
your ticket given you by the Institution, Father,’’ said 
Mrs. Morton. 

“Thank you, I’m a long way outside of that class,” 
retorted Mr. Emerson with some tartness. 

“What’s the idea of the punching?” asked Helen, 
of her grandmother. 

“You have to show your ticket every time you 
go outside of the fence or out on the lake,” ex- 
plained Mrs. Emerson. “The odd numbers are 
punched when you come in — as we do now — and the 
even numbers when you go out. It circumvents 
several little tricks that people more smart than 
honest have tried to play on the administration at 
one time or another.” 


21 


22 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“Why do we have to pay, an)rway?” asked Roger. 
“I never went to a summer resort before where you 
had to pay to go in.” 

“That’s because you never went to one that gave 
you amusement of all sorts. Here you can go to 
lectures and concerts all day long and you don’t 
have to pay a cent for them. This entrance fee 
covers everything of that sort. Where else on the 
planet can you go to something like twenty or more 
events in the course of the day for the sum of twelve 
and a half cents which is about what the grown-up 
season ticket holder pays for his fun.” 

“Nowhere, I’ll bet,” responded Roger promptly. 
“Are there really as many as that?” 

“There are a great many more if you count in 
all the things that are going on at the various clubs 
and all the classes in the Summer Schools.” 

“Don’t you have to pay for those?” 

“There’s a small fee for all instruction because 
classes require teachers, and teachers must be paid; 
and the clubs call for a small fee because they have 
expenses which they must meet. But all the public 
entertainments are free.” 

“This is just the place I’ve been looking for ever 
since Father gave me an allowance,” grinned Roger, 
whose struggles with his account book were a family 
joke. 

“Mother,” drawled Dicky in a voice that seemed 
on the verge of tears, “why don’t we ride? I’m so 
tired I can hardly walk.” 

“Poor lamb, there aren’t any trolleys here or 
any station carriages,” explained Mrs. Morton. 


GETTING SETTLED 


23 

“Roger, can’t you get another porter to take your 
bags while you carry Dicky?” 

Thus reinforced the New Jersey army marched 
down the hill from the Road Gate to the square. 

Mrs. Morton had taken a cottage, and the porters 
said that they knew exactly where it was situated. 
Roger, bearing Dicky perched upon his shoulder, 
walked between them soaking up information all 
the way. He noticed that both young men wore 
letters on their sweaters, and he discovered after 
a brief examination that they were both college men 
who were athletes at their respective institutions. 

“There are lots of fellows here doing this,” one 
of them said. 

“Working, you mean?” 

“I sure do. Jo and I think you really have more 
fun if you’re working than if you don’t. There are 
college boys rustling baggage at the trolley station 
where you came in, and at the steamer landing, 
and lots of the boarding houses have them doing 
all sorts of things. Jo and I wait on table for 
our meals at the Bismarck cottage.” 

“Do you get your room, too?” 

“We get our rooms by being janitors at two of 
the halls where they hold classes. We get up early 
and sweep them out every day and we set the chairs 
in order after every class. Then we do this porter 
act at certain hours.” 

“So your summer really isn’t costing you any- 
thing.” 

“I shall come out a little bit ahead, railroad 
ticket and all. Jo lives farther away and he won’t 


24 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

quite cover his expenses unless something new and 
lucrative turns up — like tutoring.” 

“Or running a power boat, Henry,” smiled silent 

. 

“Did you get that job at the Springers?” asked 
Henry eagerly. 

“I did, and it’s more profitable than toting bags.” 

“Good for you,” exclaimed the genial Henry, and 
Roger added his congratulations, for the young men 
were so frank about their business undertakings that 
he was deeply interested. 

The Ethels, walking at the end of the procession, 
held each other’s hands tightly so that they might 
look about without straying off the sidewalk. 

“It’s queer for a country place, isn’t it?” com- 
mented Ethel Brown. “I haven’t seen a cow or a 
chicken since we came in the gate.” 

“The houses are so close together there isn’t 
any room for them,” suggested Ethel Blue. “I 
haven’t seen a cat either.” 

“I know why. Mother told me she read in a 
booklet they sent her that there was a Bird Club 
and you know bird people are always down on cats. 
They must have sent them all out of town.” 

“Oh, here’s quite a large square. See, there are 
stores in that big brick building with the columns 
and the place opposite says Post Office — ” 

“And there’s a soda fountain under that pergola.” 

“Dicky’s hollering for soda right now.” 

“Mother won’t let him have any so early in the 
morning but we’ll remember where the place is.” 

Yet the procession seemed to be slowing up at 


GETTING SETTLED 


25 


the head and, Oh, joy, there was Grandfather mak- 
ing a distribution of ice-cream cones to grown-ups 
and children alike. Even the porters ate theirs with 
evident pleasure, consuming the very last scrap of 
the cone itself. 

Then they led the way down a very steep hill and 
along a pleasant path to a cottage that faced the 
blue water of the lake. 

“Here you are,” they said to Mrs. Morton. 

“And this must be our landlord’s son waiting to 
open the house for us,” said Mrs. Morton as a boy 
of Roger’s age came forward to meet them. 

Her guess was right and James Hancock instantly 
proved himself an agreeable and useful friend. 
The Hancocks lived in New Jersey in a town not 
far from the Mortons, but they never had happened 
to meet at home. 

“How many people are there here now?” asked 
Roger as James helped him carry the bags into the 
house. 

“Oh, I don’t know just how many to-day, but 
there are usually about twelve or fifteen thousand 
at a time when the season gets started.” 

“There must be awful crowds.” 

“The people do bunch up at lectures and con- 
certs but if you don’t like crowds you don’t have 
to go, you know.” 

“What do the fellows our age do?” 

“Swim and row and sail. Do you like the 
water?” 

“My father is in the Navy,” replied Roger as 
if that was a sufficient answer. 


26 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“Then you’ll go in for all the water sports. The 
older chaps in the Athletic Club let us use their 
club house sometimes, and they say that this summer 
there’s going to be a club especially for boys of our 
age — too old for the Boys’ Club and too young 
for the Athletic Club.” 

“Good enough, I’ll join,” declared Roger, who 
was the most sociable lad on earth. 

“Can I help your mother any more? So long, 
then. I live two houses off — in that red one over 
there just beyond the boarding house — so I’ll see you 
a lot,” and James leaped over the rail of the porch 
and strolled off toward the Pier. 

“He seems like a nice boy,” said Mrs. Morton; 
“I’m glad he lives so near.” 

“I wonder if he has any sisters,” queried Helen. 
“Did you ask him, Roger?” 

Roger had not and he admitted to himself that 
it was a mistake he would remedy the next time he 
saw James. Just as he was thinking about it the 
baggage wagon drove up with the trunks. On top 
was Jo, the porter. 

“Hullo,” he called. 

“Hullo,” returned Roger. “I didn’t know you 
rustled trunks as well as bags.” 

“I don’t. I rode down to ask you something,” 
and he proceeded to swing down a trunk to the 
other two young men as if to hurry up matters so 
that he could attend to his errand. 

“Now, what is it?” asked Roger when all the 
pieces of luggage had been placed about the house 
to his mother’s satisfaction, and the dray had gone. 


GETTING SETTLED 


27 


‘‘I don’t know whether you’ll care for It or not, 
but you were so interested I thought I’d give you 
first chance if you did want it,” Jo tried to ex- 
plain. 

“Want what?” 

“My job. You see now I’ve got this work for 
the Springers running their motor boat I’ve got to 
be somewhere within call of their house about all 
the time, so they’ve given me a room there, and I 
shall have to give up janitoring and bag-toting and 
waiting on table and everything. I thought if you’d 
like to try one or all of my jobs I’d speak about 
you and perhaps you could get in. As late as this 
you generally can’t find any work, there are so many 
applications. What do you say?” 

Roger thought a moment. 

“I’d like like thunder to do something,” he said, 
and added, flushing: “I suppose you’ll think it queer 
but I’ve never earned anything in my life and I’m 
just crazy to.” 

“There are awfully good fellows doing it here. 
You’ve seen me and Henry,” Jo went on humor- 
ously, “and a son of one of the professors is a 
janitor and the nephew of another one Is waiting on 
table at the same cottage I am, and — ” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t be ashamed to do anything hon- 
est,” Roger said quickly. “I was thinking about 
Mother. You see with Father in Mexico I sort 
of have to be the man of the family. I shouldn’t 
want to undertake things that would keep me from 
being useful to her.” 

“And you’ve got a good house here so you don’t 


28 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


need a room, so I guess I’ll just run along,” an- 
swered Jo. 

“Wait a minute,” cried Roger. “Let me speak 
to Mother.” 

Just at that moment Mrs. Morton came out on 
the porch, a little frown of anxiety on her face. 

“Here you are, Roger — and you, too, — Mr. — ” 

“Sampson,” filled in Jo. 

“Mr. Sampson. I came out to consult with you, 
Roger. It seems to me that the room in the top 
story that I counted on for you is going to be so 
warm that you can’t possibly sleep there. I wish 
you’d run up and look at it.” 

Roger’s face burst into a happy smile. 

“Good enough. Mother, I hope It Is a roaster,” 
he cried. 

Mrs. Morton looked perplexed. 

“Jo came to tell me that he thinks he can get me 
his janitor’s job that will earn me my room,” Roger 
explained. “If you don’t mind I’d like mighty well 
to do it, and It will settle this trouble here.” 

“Would you really like it?” 

“You bet.” 

“You’d have to stick to- It; and It might mean 
that you’d have to give up some pleasures that you’d 
have otherwise.” 

“I know. I’m willing. Mother,” Insisted Roger 
eagerly. 

“I don’t see, then, why you shouldn’t take it,” 
said Mrs. Morton slowly, “and we shall be much 
obliged to you if you can arrange It for Roger,” she 
continued, smiling at Sampson. 


GETTING SETTLED 


29 

“How about the table-waiting and the bag- 
toting?” he inquired. 

“I think one job will be about all he’d better 
undertake for his first experience,” decided Mrs. 
Morton. “I should be sorry not to have him with 
the family at meals, and I want him to have time 
for some sports.” 

“All right, then. I’ll try to fix it up,” said Jo, and 
he swung off up the path, pulling off his cap to Mrs. 
Morton as she nodded “Good-bye” to him. 

“Hi,” exclaimed Roger joyfully as Jo disappeared; 
“isn’t he a good chap! Now then. Mater, if your 
oldest son were a little younger or your younger son 
were a little older one of them might be a caddy 
on the golf links and earn his ice-cream cones that 
way,” and he danced a few joyous steps for his 
mother’s admiration. 

“If you undertake a thing like this you’ll have 
to stick to it,” Mrs. Morton warned again, for 
Roger’s chief fault was that he tired quickly of one 
thing after another. 

“A postage stamp’ll be nothing to me, and you’re 
a duck to let me do it. Here, kids,” he cried as the 
two, Ethels came out of the house, “gaze on me! 
I’m a horny-handed son of toil. I belong to the 
laboring classes. I earn my living — or rather my 
rooming — by the perspiration of my eyebrow,” and 
he explained the situation to the admiring girls and 
to Helen, who joined them. 

“I wish there was something I could do,” sighed 
Helen enviously. “I suppose I could wait on table 
somewhere.” 


30 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“I’m afraid it will have to be in this cottage right 
here,” responded her mother. “Even when Mary 
comes to-morrow we shall be short handed so every- 
body will have to help.” 

Mary had been Roger’s nurse and had stayed on 
in the family until now, when Dicky was too old to 
need a nurse, she had become a working house- 
keeper. She had remained behind to put the Rose- 
mont house in order after the family left, and she 
was expected to arrive the next day by the same 
train that had brought the family. 

“I will. Mother,” said Helen. “It’s only that 
doing something to earn your living seems to be in 
the air here, and I must have caught a germ on the 
way down from the trolley gate.” 

“You’ll be doing something to earn your living 
by helping at home, and all you would get by wait- 
ing on table at a boarding cottage would be your 
meals and not money.” 

“Still, it would relieve Father’s pocketbook if there 
were one mouth less to feed.” 

“True, dear, but Father is quite willing to pay 
that much for his daughter’s service to her family, 
if you want to look at it in that light.” 

“It sounds sort of horrid and mercenary, but 
when I’m older then I’ll really do some sort of 
work and repay Father,” and Mrs. Morton nodded 
her appreciation of Helen’s understanding that a 
Lieutenant’s pay is pretty small to bring up four 
children on. 

“This is an age of mutual help and service,” she 
said. “We must be a co-operative family and help 


GETTING SETTLED 


31 


each other In every way we can. What you will 
do for me this summer will be just as much help to 
me as what Roger will do by providing himself with 
a room.” 

“Somehow doing things at home never seems to 
count,” complained Helen. 

“But it does count. Service is like charity; they 
both begin at home.” 

“I know just how you feel, though. Sis,” confided 
Roger when his mother had gone Into the house. 
“I don’t think I ever felt so good in all my life 
as I do this minute just because I’m going to earn 
my own room.” 


CHAPTER III 


OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY 

^^l^TOW then, people dear,” said grandmother, 
joining the group on the porch, “even if 
we don’t have the house in the exact order that 
we want it in to-day we must take time to go to the 
formal opening of the Assembly.” 

“What happens?” asked Helen. 

“If there’s a lecture,” said Roger apprehensively, 
“me for the woods.” 

“If you stand on the edge of the Amphitheatre 
you can slip away after the introduction but it is 
worth your while to be present when the gavel falls 
because you want to follow every important event 
as it happens right through the season.” 

So the whole family fell into line when the bell 
in the tower on the lake shore rang to indicate that 
in five minutes a meeting would begin. 

“That tower has been built since I was here,” 
said Mrs. Emerson. 

“It’s called the Miller Memorial Tower,” said 
Ethel Blue gravely. 

“How in the world did you find that out so 
quickly?” 

“We saw it from the porch and ran down there 
to look at it,” she replied. 

When either of the Ethels said “we” the other 
Ethel was the partner in the plural form. 

33 


OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY 33. 

“Who told you' it was called the Miller Tower?” 

“A nice girl about our age who was sitting on the 
bench near it. She heard us wondering and she 
came over and said it was named in memory of Mr. 
Miller. He was one of the founders of Chau- 
tauqua Institution.” 

“He’s dead now,” explained Ethel Brown, “but 
Bishop Vincent is alive and he’ll be here on the 
grounds in a few days. He’s the other founder. 
He’s the one that had the Idea.” 

“What idea?” asked Helen. 

“Dorothy said — ” 

“Who is Dorothy?” 

“Dorothy is the girl who was talking to us. 
Dorothy said it was a great Idea that Bishop Vincent 
had to make people come out into the woods to 
study and to hear lectures and music.” 

“Bishop Vincent is a remarkable man,” said 
Grandmother, who had been listening with interest 
to the girls’ explanations. “You are lucky young 
people to be able to see him and perhaps to speak 
to him.” 

From the lake the family procession walked up 
another steep hill to the Amphitheatre, a huge struc- 
ture with a sloping floor, covered with benches, and 
having a roof but no sides. At one end was a plat- 
form and behind it rose the golden pipes of a large 
organ. The audience was gathering rapidly. Only 
the pit was full, for on this opening day of the As- 
sembly people had not yet come in great numbers, 
while many, like the Emersons and Mortons, had but 
just arrived and were not settled. 


34 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

As the bell finished ringing the Director of the 
Institution walked upon the stage and after rapping 
three times with his gavel declared the Assembly 
open. 

“Chautauqua Institution has three activities,” he 
said, “its Assembly, its Summer Schools and its all- 
the-y ear-round Home Reading Course. Its work 
never begins and never ends. Chautauqua has given 
a new word to the language; has been the pioneer in 
summer assemblies and summer schools, and has be- 
come the recognized leader of the world in home 
education. Since 1874 the Chautauqua movement 
has spread until there are 3,000 summer gatherings 
in this country alone which have taken the name. 

“During these years this platform here at Chau- 
tauqua has been one of the greatest forums of our 
modern life. Here every good movement has re- 
ceived a hearty welcome. During the first year, 
from this place went out the call for the organization 
of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. 
Here was held the first successful summer school in 
America. 

“Here new organizations have found their first 
opportunity. Here great political and social and 
economic problems have been discussed by those who 
by knowledge and experience are able to speak with 
authority. Chautauqua, the place, has been beauti- 
fied and equipped with every convenience for com- 
munity life. It has been a paradise for little chil- 
dren, has offered every opportunity for wholesome 
recreation, has given the best of music, literature, 
poetry and art freely to those who enjoy them. 


OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY 35 

“Every one who enjoys any of the privileges of 
this great Institution has a corresponding measure 
of obligation. The measure of what you take away 
from Chautauqua is wholly determined by what you 
bring to it. No system of lectures or of individual 
study can compare with this great co-operative op- 
portunity which Chautauqua gives for living together, 
for working out one’s own intellectual and religious 
salvation in terms of intercourse with others. Here 
are gathered people of vision, people who are striv- 
ing for efficiency of personality, people who realize 
that we live in a time of new opportunities and new 
duties.” 

A burst of applause followed these inspiring 
words. Then the young people all left quietly, ex- 
cept Roger, who stayed with the elders after all, 
when he found that the speaker was to be the Presi- 
dent of Berea College, Kentucky. Roger had read 
of President Wilson’s calling these Southern high- 
landers “a part of the original stuff of which America 
was made,” and he wanted to hear about their sturdy 
life from a man who knew them well. 

The girls went exploring toward the southern 
end of the grounds. 

“I believe this must be the Girls’ Club,” said Ethel 
Brown. “Dorothy told us where it was. She said 
she was going to join it.” 

“They learn to make baskets and to cook and to 
swim and to do folk dancing and all sorts of things,” 
explained Ethel Blue. “Don’t you think Aunt 
Marion will let us belong, Helen?” 

“I’m sure she will,” agreed Helen, as they went 


36 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

up the steps of the hospitable looking building and 
peered through the windows. 

“When will it open?” 

“Next week. I’m perfectly crazy about it; I can * 
hardly wait,” and one Ethel seized the other Ethel’s 
hand and skipped down the steps with her. 

“This next place must be the Boys’ Club building 
if there is such a thing,” said Helen. 

“There is,” cried Ethel Brown. “Dorothy told 
us so.” 

“Dorothy seems to know all about everything.” 

“She does. She was here last summer, and she 
says she has been all over the United States and she 
never had such a good time anywhere as she had 
here.” 

“We’ll certainly have to belong, then. Are there 
any girls as old as I am?” 

“Yes, and I asked if Dicky was too little to be- 
long to the Boys’ Club and Dorothy said that he 
wasn’t if he wasn’t babyish.” 

“Dicky isn’t babyish.” 

“I told her that he could dress himself and that 
Mary didn’t pay much attention to him any more 
and that he tried to do all the things that he saw 
Roger do and that he went on really long walks with 
us.” 

“So she thought they’d take him.” 

“I told her Roger called him a ‘good little sport’ 
and she said she guessed he was all right.” 

“Over there must be the bathing beach,” said 
Ethel Blue as they turned away from the lake and 
started up another hilly street lined with houses. 


OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY 37 

**I hope there’s a swimming teacher for you girls,” 
said Helen. Father taught me when I was smaller 
than you are, but you’ve never had a chance to learn 
yet.” 

“I’m going to learn this summer if I don’t do an- 
other thing,” exclaimed Ethel Brown enthusiastically. 

“So am I,” said Ethel Blue. 

At the top of the hill the girls came out on an open 
place with a rustic fountain in the centre. At the 
left was a beautiful building shaped like a Greek 
temple. It was creamy in color and gleamed softly 
against a background of trees. 

“What is that do you suppose?” wondered Ethel 
Blue. 

“A-U-L-A C-H-R-I-S-T-I,” spelled Ethel Brown 
as they stood gazing at the inscription over the door. 
“What does that mean?” 

*^Aula^ aula*^ repeated Helen slowly. “Oh, I 
know; it’s Latin for halL That must mean Hall of 
Christ. It looks quite new.” 

“Probably it’s another thing that’s been built since 
Grandmother was here.” 

“We must ask her about it. Perhaps they have 
church there.” 

“It’s a lot prettier than this building,” and Ethel 
Blue nodded her head toward a large wooden house 
painted cream color. “C.L.S.C. Alumni Hall,” she 
read. “What does that mean?” 

“Children, Ladies, Sons and Chickens,” guessed 
Ethel Brown. 

“Come Let’s See Chautauqua,” contributed Ethel 
Blue. 


38 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

‘‘Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle,” sup- 
plied a pleasant voice and the girls turned to meet the 
smile of a tall, slender woman who was on her way 
into the building. “That’s the name of the asso- 
ciation that does the Home Reading Course 
work.” 

“Oh, I know,” cried Helen; “Grandmother joined 
when she was here ten years ago and Mother and 
Grandfather belong, too.” 

“Did your grandmother graduate?” asked the 
lady, who seemed much interested. 

“She had her diploma sent to her. She hasn’t 
been here since that first time.” 

“You must tell her that she must watch the Daily 
for notices of meetings of her class and that there 
are many festivities during Recognition Week that 
she can take part in.” 

“Grandfather and Mother are in this year’s class,” 
said Helen shyly. 

It proved that the lady knew their names and 
where they lived. 

“You see I am the Executive Secretary of the 
C.L.S.C.,” she explained in answer to the girls’ look 
of surprise, “so I correspond with many people whom 
I never have a chance to meet unless they come here 
in the summer.” 

“Why, you must be Miss Kimball,” cried Helen. 
“I’ve heard Mother speak of having letters from 
you.” 

“Yes, I’m Miss Kimball, and I hope you’re going 
to be a Reader when your school work gives you time 
for it.” 


OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY 39 

“It will be Roger’s turn to join next,” said Ethel 
Brown timidly; “he’s older than Helen. And 
Ethel Blue and I’ll belong later. There ought to 
be some member of the family joining every little 
while so that we can all go to special things every 
summer we come up here.” 

Miss Kimball laughed. 

“I see you’re already converted to Chautauqua 
though this is only your first day,” she said. “Would 
you like to go into the C.L.S.C. building? I have 
an errand here and then I’ll walk over to the Hall of 
Philosophy with you.” 

The interior of the C.L.S.C. building was not more 
beautiful than the exterior, but it was full of interest 
as Miss Kimball explained it to her new companions. 
The C.L.S.C. classes, it seemed, occupied the rooms 
for their meetings. So many classes had graduated 
since the reading work began in 1878 that they could 
no longer have separate rooms. Sometimes three or 
four occupied the same room. 

“There are plans on foot now,” said Miss Kimball, 
“to have each room’s decoration designed by an 
artist and when that is done it will be as perfect to 
look at as it is now to feel, for the C.L.S.C. spirit is 
always harmonious if the color schemes aren’t. 

“Here is your mother’s and grandfather’s class- 
room, down stairs near the door. You’ve seen that 
every room has its treasures, its mementoes that 
mean a great deal to the class members. The 1914 
Class hasn’t had time to pick up mementoes yet but 
they have a really valuable ornament in these pic- 
tures. They are from a first edition of ‘Nicholas 


40 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

Nickleby’ which one of the members found in her 
attic and sacrificed to the good cause.” 

The girls examined carefully the funny drawings 
of men with impossible legs and women with ex- 
traordinary skirts. Then they glanced at the bust 
above them. 

“It’s Dickens,” said Helen. 

“ 1 9 14 is the ‘Dickens Class.’ They began to read 
in the English Year — the year when all the topics 
were about England — so they took the name of an 
English author. Now if you’ve seen enough we can 
go over to the Hall of Philosophy for a minute be- 
fore I must go back to my office.” 

The three girls were almost overcome by the won- 
der of being at Chautauqua only one day and meet- 
ing and talking with this officer whose name had 
been familiar to Helen, at least, for a long time. 
Her geniality prevented them from being speechless, 
however, and they walked across the open place with 
happy thoughts of all they would have to tell the 
family when they got home. 

The rustic fountain was a gift from a C.L.S.C. 
class, they learned as they passed it, and here, ahead 
of them was the Hall of Philosophy. 

“It’s almost exactly like the picture in Helen’s 
‘History of Greece,’ ” cried Ethel Blue, “the temple 
at Athens, you know.” 

“The Parthenon,” murmured Helen. 

“It does make you think of the Parthenon,” said 
Miss Kimball. “In a small way this is beautiful, 
too, in its setting of green trees, though that was 


OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY 41 

larger of course and its stone pillars gleamed against 
the vivid blue sky.’’ 

“You must have seen It,” guessed Helen, struck 
by the enjoyment of Miss Kimball’s tone. 

“Ah, Athens Is one of the joyous memories of my 
life !” she exclaimed. 

Like the Amphitheatre the building had no sides. 
The dark beams of the roof were supported by pillars 
and the breeze blew softly through. Miss Kimball 
and the girls sat dowm to rest a while. A sort of 
wide pulpit faced them, and the chairs were arranged 
before it In a semi-circle. 

“See those mosaic squares laid In the floor,” cried 
Ethel Brown. “They are all different. Look, each 
one has a name on It and a date and a flower or some- 
thing.” 

“They have been put In by the C.L.S.C. classes,” 
explained Miss Kimball, and Helen added, “I re- 
member reading In Mother’s Chautauqua magazine 
that her class had their tablet put down last summer 
but It was not to be dedicated until this summer when 
a lot of people would be here to graduate. Let’s 
see if we can find one marked Dickens.” 

“They’re all put In in order,” cried Ethel Brown. 
“The numbers run right along except where there’s 
a square skipped once in a while. Yes, yes, here’s 
Mother’s; here’s the Dickens square,” and the little 
group gathered around the Dickens tablet, feeling 
an ownership that they had not felt before. They 
were yet to learn that everybody has a sense of 
ownership at Chautauqua because all the public build- 


'^42 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

ings are built for everybody and are used by every- 
body all the time. 

“Here are ‘Dickens’ and ‘1914’ on Aunty’s 
square,” said Ethel Blue, “and a rose.” 

“The English rose is the class flower,” said Miss 
Kimball. 

“Is the course very hard?” asked Ethel Blue shyly. 

“We say it’s ‘Easy for Anybody; Worth While 
for Everybody,’ ” laughed Miss Kimball. “We 
don’t mean to make it hard; just sensible and — well, 
‘worth while’ describes it as well as anything.” 

“We’ll be awfully proud of Helen when she be- 
longs,” said loyal Ethel Blue, slipping her arm 
around her tall cousin’s waist. 

“Be sure to tell your grandmother that she may 
pass through the Golden Gate on Recognition Day 
behind the graduating class,” said Miss Kimball, 
smiling and walking quickly away to her work. 

The girls called after her a “Good-bye” and thanks 
for her guidance. 

Leaving the Hall they turned in the direction of 
home, passing through a street lined with cottages, 
one of which, they noticed, was marked “Unitarian 
Headquarters,” another “Baptist House,” and an- 
other “Disciples’ House,” while up a side street they 
saw a Lutheran sign. 

“They seem to have houses instead of churches 
here,” said Ethel Blue. 

“I noticed a ‘Methodist House’ back of the 
Amphitheatre,” said Helen. 

“And a ‘Congregational House’ on one side and 
a ‘Presbyterian House’ on the other,” cried Ethel 


OPENING OF THE ASSEMBLY 


43 


Blue. “You can go to any kind you want to just the 
same as if you were at home. Look, the people 
are coming out of the Amphitheatre now,’^ she added. 

“There’s Mother — there are Grandmother and 
Grandfather. Hullo, hullo,” called Ethel Brown, 
and the two children tore along the matting laid 
down beside the auditorium to keep the noise of pass- 
ing feet from disturbing the audiences. 

“What do you think we did? Whom do you 
think we saw?” they cried breathlessly, and recited 
all their adventures as fast as they could talk. 

“You’re very lucky children,” said Grandfather, 
“and we must celebrate the event,” so they went 
across the square and investigated the refreshment 
booth in the pergola. Then the elders strolled 
slowly back over the road the young people had just 
come, for there was to be a reading at five o’clock 
in the Hall of Philosophy and they thought they 
would see the Hall of Christ and the C.L.S.C. build- 
ing before it began. 

Helen and the Ethels went with them part of the 
way and then turned down a side street to catch a 
glimpse of the lake again. 

“Perhaps we’ll come across Roger somewhere,” 
said Helen. 

But it was not Roger but James Hancock whom 
they met as they walked along the lake front. 


CHAPTER IV 

PERSONALLY CONDUCTED 

J AMES pulled off his cap as the girls bowed to 
him. 

“Did you know this was the Bishop’s house you’re 
in front of?” he whispered, glancing up at the 
veranda to make sure that he was not overheard. 

“Which is the house, the wooden part or the 
tent?” asked Ethel Brown. 

“When he first came here forty years ago there 
were only one or two houses and for a summer or 
two everybody lived in tents.” 

“What fun I” cried Ethel Blue. 

“The seasons weren’t very long then, only two 
weeks, so nobody minded if things weren’t very com- 
fortable. The Bishop and Mr. Miller had these 
combination arrangements built because they had lots 
of guests and needed larger places.” 

“I wonder if there are any people here now who 
came that first summer?” 

“Yes, indeed, my father was here then. He was 
a little kid in skirts.” 

“Naturally he doesn’t remember anything about 
it.” 

“No, but my grandmother brought him and she 
often tells me about it. You just wait till Old First 
Night. There are often twenty people who stand 
44 


PERSONALLY CONDUCTED 


45 


up when they ask how many present were here at the 
first session. The Chancellor, that’s Bishop Vin- 
cent, was here, of course, and his son, he’s the presi- 
dent now, and the Executive Secretary of the 
C.L.S.C.— ” 

‘‘That’s Miss Kimball. We know her. We just 
met her,” and they told their new friend all about 
it. 

“You’re sure in luck,” was his comment. 

“Old First Night is the anniversary of the very 
first meeting, I suppose.” 

“Just you wait and see,” hinted James promisingly. 
“Grandmother thinks it’s the most interesting thing 
that happens all summer.” 

“How long have we got to wait?” asked Ethel 
Blue who liked to have things happen right off. 

“Till the first Tuesday in August.” 

“That won’t be for a long time. Isn’t anything 
interesting going to happen before then?” 

“Oodles of things. Next week all the clubs be- 
gin and a little later there’ll be a pageant, and the 
Spelling Match is great.” 

“Why?” questioned Ethel Blue in a doubtful tone 
that made the others smile. 

“You can see what Ethel Blue thinks about spell- 
ing,” laughed Helen. “Why is it such good fun?” 

“Oh, it’s fun to see the grown-up people trying it 
just as if they were kids. They don’t let anybody 
under fifteen go in. Mr. Vincent, the president, 
says young people are ‘such uncomfortably good 
spellers.’ ” 

“Ethel Blue wouldn’t agree with him.” 


46 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“It’s true, though, because when you’re in school 
you’re getting practice every day, and the grown-up 
people don’t get so much practice. They look up 
words in the dictionary instead of remembering the 
right way to spell them.” 

“It must be funny to see grown-up people fail, but 
I suppose they give them the hardest words there 
are.” 

“They take the words out of the Home Reading 
Course books for the next year. Miss Kimball told 
you about the Home Reading Course, didn’t she?” 

“Oh, we knew before,” the girls all cried in chorus. 
“Our grandmother is a graduate.” 

“And Aunt Marion is in this year’s class.” 

“And so is Grandfather.” 

“My father is, too,” said James. “He’s a doctor, 
you know, and he says that if he didn’t read that he 
wouldn’t know anything but bones and fevers.” 

“What does he mean?” asked Ethel Brown, who 
liked to have everything perfectly clear. 

“He means he wouldn’t read anything but his 
medical journals and he’d ‘go stale.’ ” 

“Is your father coming on Recognition Day?” 

“He’s coming if nobody has a smashed head or 
smallpox just at the wrong time. He says he 
wouldn’t miss it for anything. The Recognition 
Day procession marches along this path we’re on.” 

“When will Recognition Day be?” asked Ethel 
Brown. 

“The middle of August.” 

Ethel Blue groaned. 

“Everything is so far off !” she exclaimed. 


PERSONALLY CONDUCTED 


47 


“Here’s the hotel — the Hotel Athenaeum,” and 
James nodded toward a large building with a tower 
and with a veranda on which guests were sitting look- 
ing out upon the lake. 

“The band concerts are right here all summer. 
The band plays up on the hotel piazza and the peo- 
ple walk around below here and sit on the grass. It 
looks pretty when the girls have on pretty dresses.” 

“Are there lots of girls here?” asked Helen. 

“About five million,” returned James cheerfully. 
“I’ve got a sister who’s going over to call on you 
as soon as she sees you on your porch. That’s the 
only way people can make calls here. Everybody’s 
out all the time going to lectures and classes so you 
have to catch them when you see them.” 

“You’re neighbors so we’ll see her right off,” 
said Helen hopefully. “What’s this building?” 

“This is the Arcade. There are some shops in 
it and doctors and things. The women all learn to 
embroider here — see, round this corner on the piazza 
is where the teacher stays. Mother goes there all 
the time, and my married sister. You know they 
joke at Chautauqua women for embroidering right 
through lectures and concerts. Somebody wrote 
some rhymes about it once.” 

“Let’s have them.” 

“I never fail to oblige when I’m asked for them. 
Listen. It’s dedicated ‘To the Wool-Gatherers.’ 

“I don’t go out on Sundays 
At Chautauqua, for you see 
To just set still and listen, 

Are the hardest things that be. 


48 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

‘‘At ‘Devotional’ ’tis different, 

There my crochet-work I take, 

The one-two-three, skip-two, do-one. 

Just keeps me wide awake. 

“I haint heard much the preacher said 
To-day, — I dropped a stitch — 

But ’twas splendid, and I think 
’Twas on the duties of the rich. 

“With lectures, sermons, concerts. 

And all such things as that, 

’Tis nice to think they culture me 
While I set there and tat. 

“All hail to old Chautauqua, 
ril carry off this year. 

Some thirty yards of edging. 

To prove that I was here.” 

“Right here on this open space is where they used 
to have the lectures forty years ago,” James went on, 
somewhat abashed by the applause he received. 
“It’s called Miller Park now.” 

“What became of the hall?” 

“There never was any hall. There was a raised 
platform and the people sat in front of it and when 
it rained they had to put up their umbrellas.” 

“The trees have grown since, I suppose.” 

“There were trees there then, but they thinned 
them out to make room. The first houses were 
built around the edge of the open place. Those over 
there are some of the original articles.” 


PERSONALLY CONDUCTED 


49 

The girls saw a row of small cottages rising side 
by side, their porches almost touching. 

“They aren’t bad looking,” said James patroniz- 
ingly, “but the Institution doesn’t allow houses to be 
built so close together now.” 

“Why not?” 

“They say that there’s no reason why a cottage 
shouldn’t be as good looking on a small scale as a 
big house and no house can look its best if it’s jammed 
up into another one’s lap, so now they require peo- 
ple to leave some land around them.” 

They had crossed Miller Park and passed between 
two houses to a walk that ran along the lakeside. 

“Here’s our house, right here,” said James, “and 
there’s Margaret on the porch now.” 

“And Dorothy,” cried the Ethels together. 

Margaret Hancock ran down the steps at her 
brother’s call and asked her new friends to stay a 
while. 

“If you don’t mind making the first call,” she 
laughed. 

She was a clear-eyed girl, not as pretty as Helen, 
but with a frank expression that was pleasant to see. 
“Nobody stands on ceremony at Chautauqua,” she 
went on, “and if you want to see anybody you’ve got 
to seize her right where you find her.” 

They all laughed, for she had used almost the same 
words as her brother. 

“You see how the Hancock family holds to- 
gether,” said James. 

“This is Dorothy Smith.” 

Margaret introduced the young girl on the porch 

4 


50 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

to Helen, for she was already speaking to the Ethels. 

“Helen, Helen, they cried, “this is our friend 
Dorothy we told you about.” 

Helen looked with interest at the girl who had 
seemed to know all about Chautauqua as her new 
acquaintances reported her conversation. She saw 
a girl about the age of the Ethels but not so tall and 
lacking in their appearance of vigor. Otherwise she 
was not unlike them, for she had curly brown hair 
and her nose was just the least bit “puggy,” to use 
Roger’s descriptive word. Her eyes, however, were 
unlike either Ethel’s, for they were gray. She had 
easy manners with a pretty touch of shyness that 
seemed to Helen quite remarkable since she had 
travelled all over the United States. 

“I wouldn’t miss the Girls’ Club for anything,” 
she was saying. “I learned how to make lots of 
things there last summer, and at Christmas time I 
sold enough to pay my club fee this year, and more 
too.” 

Helen loked at her with renewed interest. Here 
was a girl two years younger than she and she was 
earning money to pay for her pleasures this summer. 
It gave her something to think about. 

“You and I must join the Young Women’s Vaca- 
tion Club,” said Margaret to Helen. “They say 
they are going to have picnics and plays and great 
fun. It’s a new club.” 

“I certainly shall. What kinds of things did you 
learn to make?” Helen asked Dorothy. 

“I put almost all my time on baskets. Mother 
said she thought it was better to learn how to do 


PERSONALLY CONDUCTED 


51 


one thing very well than to do a lot of things just 
middling well; so I learned how to make ten differ- 
ent kinds of baskets and trays.” 

“All different shapes?” 

“Different materials, too; wicker and splints and 
rushes and some pretty grasses that I found across 
the lake one afternoon when Mother and I went 
over to Maple Springs on the steamer.” 

“I know they were beauties,” said Helen heartily. 

“They were,” confirmed Margaret. “I saw some 
of them. I thought the prettiest of all was that 
small tray made of pine needles.” 

“Pine needles!” exclaimed James. “How could 
you work with them? I should think they’d come 
bristling out all the time.” 

“They were needles from the long-leaved pine 
that grows in the South. I got them in North 
Carolina when Mother and I were there the winter 
before.” 

“And you sold a lot of them?” ventured Helen, 
who was not quite sure that it was polite to ask such 
a question but who was eager to know just how 
Dorothy had managed. 

“It was easy,” explained Dorothy simply. 
“Mother and I were in a town in Illinois last winter. 
Mother was teaching embroidery in an art store, so 
she got acquainted with the ladies who were getting 
up a bazar at Christmas time and they let me sell 
my things there on commission.” 

“On commission? What’s that?” asked Ethel 
Blue to Helen’s relief, for she did not like to ac- 
knowledge that she did not know. 


52 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“On commission? Why, I made a table full of 
baskets and when they sold them they kept one- 
tenth of the price for their commission. It was 
like paying rent for the table you see and a salary to 
a clerk to sell it. That’s the way Mother explained 
it to me,” ended Dorothy rather shyly, for James 
was staring at her with astonishment that a girl and 
not a very old girl either should know as much as 
that about business. 

“Hullo, here comes Roger,” he exclaimed. 
“Let’s hear what he’s been up to,” and he left the 
porch by his usual method — over the rail — and 
joined his new friend before he reached the house. 
As they strolled off the girls heard scraps of con- 
versation about “baseball,” “first and second crew” 
and “sailing match.” 

“Are you all going to the Amphitheatre this 
evening?” asked Margaret as the Mortons prepared 
to leave. 

“I think Mother will let us go to-night because 
it’s our first night and we’re crazy to see every- 
thing,” replied Ethel Brown, “but she says we’ve 
got to go to bed early here just as we do at home 
or else we’ll get thin instead of fat this summer.” 

“Mother lets me go whenever there are pictures,” 
said Margaret. “Often there are splendid travel 
lectures that are illustrated. I love those. And 
once in a while I go to a concert in the evening, but 
usually I go to the afternoon concerts instead.” 

“Do you suppose we’ll ever be big enough to go 
to bed just as late as we want to?” Ethel Blue asked 
Helen as they went up the steps of their own house. 


PERSONALLY CONDUCTED 


53 


“Even Roger doesn’t do that. I remember 
Father’s telling me once that he used to growl about 
going to bed early when he was a boy and that when 
the time finally came when he could go to bed as 
late as he liked he didn’t care anything about it and 
used to go early half the time.” 

“I don’t believe I shall be that way,” sighed 
Ethel. “How queer grown people are !” 

But since they had these curious and insistent ideas 
about the need of repose she eagerly took advantage 
of any break in the routine such as was offered by 
the chance to go to the Amphitheatre that evening. 
It was a wonderful sight, the immense open building, 
the glittering organ, the brilliant electric lights, and, 
facing the thousands of people that made up the 
audience, a slender woman with a marvellously rich 
voice, who sang negro melodies and told negro sto- 
ries that brought laughter and tears. 

After the recital was over the whole audience 
went to the lakeside, and there watched the lighting 
of the signal fires that for years have flashed to the 
country around the news that another Assembly has 
opened. Higher and higher the flames roared at 
different points along the shore. Point Chautauqua, 
across the water, saw the beacon and flashed on the 
news down the lake until fires far beyond the sight 
of the people on the Assembly grounds told their 
story to the dwellers near-by and the glare of the sky 
passed it farther afield. 

“Isn’t it just too wonderful,” whispered Ethel 
Blue to Ethel Brown, and Ethel Brown answered, 
“I can’t believe we’re really here.” 


CHAPTER V 


LEARNING TO SWIM 

B y the middle of the next week the Ethels were 
established in the Girls’ Club and the Club was 
well under way. Dorothy went with them on the 
opening morning and introduced them to the director 
of the Club so that they felt no embarrassment in 
beginning their new activities. Miss Roberts was a 
fresh-faced, wholesome young woman whose cordial 
manner made the girls think of their teacher at 
home. They liked her at once, and so they were 
eager to follow any suggestions that she made. 

The very first was that which Dorothy’s mother 
had urged upon her the summer before, the sug- 
gestion which had made so good a basket-maker of 
her that she had been able to sell her work during 
the winter. 

“It’s a great deal better for you to work hard at 
one thing,” said Miss Roberts in a little speech she 
made at the opening of the club, “than to learn a 
little bit about several things. Don’t be a ‘jack of 
all trades and good at none’ girl; be a thorough 
work-woman at whatever craft you select. Pick out 
the thing you think is going to interest you most and 
put your whole strength on it.” 

“Stenciling for me,” whispered Dorothy, “and 
invalids’ cooking.” 


54 


LEARNING TO SWIM 


55 

“Me, too,” said Ethel Brown, who admired her 
new friend so much that she wanted to have the 
pleasure of being in the same class with her. Ethel 
Blue looked disturbed when she heard what the 
others were saying, for she had made up her mind 
to learn basketry, but it seemed rather forlorn to be 
in a class with girls she did not know at all. She 
thought she would ask Miss Roberts what she 
thought about it. 

“Another thing I want every girl here to do,” 
went on Miss Roberts, “is to take some physical 
exercise every day. You’ll never have a better 
chance to learn to swim, for instance, and it is one 
of our customs to have light gymnastic movements 
every morning. In about a week the School of 
Physical Education will have an exhibition in the 
Amphitheatre and we must send a squad of girls to 
represent the Club, so the harder you work to be- 
come exact and uniform in your exercises the better 
showing we shall make.” 

When it came to enrolling in the classes both 
Ethels registered as wanting to swim. 

“I must learn,” said Ethel Blue, “because I’ve got 
an uncle in the Navy.” 

“And I’ve got to,” laughed Ethel Brown, “be- 
cause her uncle is my father.” 

Ethel Brown and Dorothy gave their names for 
the class in stenciling, but Ethel Blue crossed to Miss 
Roberts’s side before she enlisted. 

“I know I’d like stenciling,” she said, “only I 
made up my mind that I wanted to make baskets and 
I really want to do that more than to do stenciling.” 


56 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“But you think you’ll be lonesome? Is that it?” 
asked the Director with her kind eyes on Ethel’s 
face. 

“You see I don’t know anybody here but Ethel 
Brown and Dorothy.” 

“Come here a minute, Della,” called Miss Roberts 
to a short, rosy-faced girl whose crisp red hair was 
flying behind her as she skipped across the roorrL 

“Della, this is Ethel Morton,” she said. “And 
Ethel, this is Della Watkins. Now you know at 
least one other member of the Girls’ Club, and it 
happens that Della is going to take basketry, unless 
she has changed her mind about it since yester- 
day.” 

“I haven’t, Miss Roberts,” declared Della; “I’m 
going to work at baskets until I can make a tray like 
one I saw at the Arts and Crafts Studios last sum- 
mer. Mamma says it would take a grown person 
two summers to learn how to do it, but I’m going 
to try even if it takes me three.” 

“Della never gives up anything she once takes 
hold of,” smiled Miss Roberts. “She’s like her 
dog. He’s a bull dog, and I should hate to have 
him take a fancy to anything I didn’t want him to 
have!” 

Both girls laughed and Della slipped her arm 
around Ethel Blue’s waist and ran with her to the 
basketry teacher who was recording the names of 
her fast growing class. 

For an hour the girls worked at their new tasks 
and then they did some easy arm and leg exercises 


LEARNING TO SWIM 


SI. 

and ended the morning with a swift march around 
the big room. 

“We must hand in our names for the camping 
trip,” directed Dorothy. 

“What is that?” asked both Ethels in chorus. 

“Across the lake is a camp that both the Boys’ 
and Girls’ Clubs use in turn. There’s a great rush 
to go so we’d better be on the list early.” 

“How long do we stay?” 

“Just one night and plenty of grown people go, 
too, so the mothers never object. It’s the grandest 
thing.” 

“I’ve never slept in a tent,” said Ethel Blue, “and 
I’d love to do it because my father has to do it so 
much. I think he’d like to have me.” 

But when they told Mrs. Morton of the plan 
she was not quite so eager as the girls would have 
liked to have her. 

“How do you go there?” she asked. 

“In a motor boat, Dorothy says.” 

“We shall be on the water a good deal this sum- 
mer,” said Mrs. Morton after thinking a minute, 
“and you girls can’t learn to swim too quickly. I 
think I will say that you may go to the camp when 
you can both swim at least twenty strokes.” 

“If my bathing dress is all ready I’ll begin to- 
morrow, Aunt Marion.” 

“May we go in every day. Mother?” 

“Every suitable day.” 

“I’ll bet on Ethel Blue,” pronounced Roger 
solemnly. “She’s a landsman’s daughter so she’ll 


58 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

work harder to learn than Ethel Brown will. Ethel 
Brown will think she’ll take to it like a duck because 
her father is a duck, so to speak.” 

“You just wait,” cried Ethel Brown defiantly. 

“I believe they’ll both be swimming in ten days,” 
declared Grandfather Emerson. 

At least they tried hard. They went regularly 
to the bathing beach, listened attentively to their in- 
structor’s directions, practiced carefully in the water, 
and were caught by the family a dozen times a day 
taking turns lying on benches and working each 
other’s legs, and making gestures expressive of their 
desire to imitate the fishes that they could see slip- 
ping through the water when they looked down into 
it from the dock. 

“They just flip a fin and off they go,” sighed Ethel 
Blue. “I flip two fins and wag my feet into the bar- 
gain and I go down instead of forward.” 

“I’m not scared any longer, anyway. Teacher 
says that’s a big gain.” 

“ ‘Keep air in your lungs and you needn’t be 
afraid,’ she’s told me over and over. ‘Poke your 
nose out of water and you’re all right.’ It was kind 
of goo-ey at first, though, wasn’t it, ducking your 
head and opening your eyes?” 

“I got used to that pretty quick because I knew 
the water w^asn’t up to my neck and all I had to do 
to be all right was to stand up. The three arm 
movements I learned quickly; make ready, put your 
palms right together in front of your chest — then — ” 

“One, — push them straight forward as far as you 
can — 


LEARNING TO SWIM 


59 



Make Ready 


“Put your palms right together in front of your chest.” 

She pushed Ethel Blue’s legs forward as close to her body as they 
would go. 



Number One 


“Push the arms straight forward as far as you can.” 

She pulled the legs as far apart as she could and as far back as 
possible. 


6o ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 



Number Two 

“Turn the palms flat and swing them as far back as the shoulder.” 

She brought the legs together again, the heels touching. 

“Two, — ^turn the palms flat and swing them as 
far back as the shoulder — ” 

“Make ready again — bring your palms together 
in front of your chest again and repeat.” 

“What in the name of sense are you two kids 
chanting,” ejaculated Roger, poking his head inside. 

“Go away, Roger. We can breathe and we can 
work our arms and that means we can keep afloat. 
If only we can get the leg motions right !” 

“Let me give you a pointer,” said Roger, who was 
a fine swimmer; “while you’re learning try hard 
not to make any useless movements. They tire you 
and they don’t get you anywhere.” 

“That’s just what our teacher says. ‘Lost motion 
is bad anywhere, but in swimming it’s fatal.’ ” 

“She’s all right,” commended Roger. “You just 
keep up that bench system of yours and you’ll come 
out O.K.” 


LEARNING TO SWIM 


6i 


So Ethel Blue stretched herself again face down 
on the bench and Ethel Brown put her cousin’s heels 
together and her toes out and pulled her legs straight 
back. 

“Ready,” she cried. 

Then she pushed Ethel Blue’s legs forward as 
close to her body as they would go, and a muffled 
groan came from the pupil, head down over the 
bench. 

“Hold your head up. Can’t you make your arms 
go at the same time? Now leg Number One goes 
with the arm Number One.” 

“I can’t do it yet,” gurgled Ethel Blue; “I want 
to learn these leg movements by themselves first.” 

“Here’s Number One, then,” said Ethel Brown, 
and she pulled the legs as far apart as she could 
and as far back as possible, the feet still being hori- 
zontal; “and here’s Number Two,” and she brought 
the legs together again, the heels touching. 

“I forgot to wag my feet when you did that last 
one,” panted Ethel Blue. “If you wag them it 
gives you an extra push forward you know.” 

“I know; it really does; I did it accidentally yes- 
terday and I popped right ahead some distance. 
Now let me try,” and she took her turn on the 
bench while Ethel Blue counted and pulled labori- 
ously, “Number One, Number Two, Make Ready.” 

“I floated for two minutes to-day.” 

“You did!” There was envy in Ethel Brown’s 
voice as she resumed her upright position and helped 
her cousin move the bench back against the wall. 

“I thought I’d try, so I turned over on my back 


62 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


and put my nose and mouth as high out of water as 
I could and tried to forget that my forehead was be- 
ing swashed. Then I filled my lungs up full and 
there I was, just like a cork.” 

“Or a barrel,” substituted Roger, poking his head 
in again. “Grandfather sends you his compliments 
— or he would if he happened to think of it — and 
says that when he was a boy they used to ask him 
‘What does a duck go down for?’ Do you know 
the answer?” 

“Grandfather told me that when I was Dicky’s 
age — ‘for divers’ reasons’; and he comes up again 
‘for sun — dry reasons.’ ” 

“You’re altogether too knowing, you kids. 
Where’s Helen?” 

“Gone on a tramp with the Vacation Club. 
Mother and Grandfather have gone to the five 
o’clock reading hour. Grandmother is taking her 
embroidery lesson at the Arcade, and Mary is down 
on the lake front. There isn’t a soul in the house 
except Dicky and he’s taking a nap.” 

“Then here’s the best time I know to teach you 
young ladies how to resuscitate a drowned person. 
If one of you will oblige me by playing drowned — 
thank you, ma’am.” 

With solemnity Roger removed his coat and pro- 
ceeded to his self-imposed task as Ethel Blue 
dropped limply on the floor. 

“If you happen to have your wits about you still 
in about the usual amount, all I have to do is to 
start up your circulation by rubbing you like the mis- 
chief and then rolling you up in hot blankets to stave 


LEARNING TO SWIM * 63 

off a chill. But if the few senses that you 
possess — ” 

“Thank you!” 

— have left you then I have two things to do in- 
stead of one; first, I must start up your breathing 
once more, and second I must stir up your circula- 
tion.” 

“Yes, sir,” agreed both girls meekly. 



*‘You keep his nose out of the sand by putting his arm under his 
own forehead.” 


“When a person is unconscious his tongue is apt 
to fall back and stop up his throat. To prevent 
that you turn your victim over on his face.” 

“Ow! My nose!” cried Ethel Blue as Roger 
suited the action to the word. 

“You keep his nose out of the sand by putting his 
own arm under his own forehead, thus making him 
useful. Fixed this way his tongue slips forward 
and the water in his mouth will run out. Sometimes 
this is enough. If it isn’t, then turn the patient on 
his side — ” he rolled Ethel Blue on edge — “and 
try to arouse breathing by putting ammonia under 
his nose or tickling his nose and throat with a 


64 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

feather. Somebody ought to be rubbing his face 
and chest all the time and throwing dashes of cold 
water on them.” 

“Poor lamb!” 

“If he doesn’t begin to breathe promptly under 
these kind attentions then you must try artificial 
breathing.” 

“Artificial breathing — ^make-believe breathing 1 
How do you do that?” 

“Don’t let people crowd around and cut off the 
air. Turn him on his face again,” — and over went 
Ethel Blue — “putting something thick like this 
rolled up coat under his chest to keep it off the 
ground.” 

“Umph — that’s a relief!” grunted Ethel Blue. 

“Then roll him gently on to his side and then 
forward on to his face once more. Move him once 
in every four slow counts. Every time he goes on 
to his face give him a vigorous rub between the 
shoulder blades.” 

“Ow, ow,” ejaculated Ethel Blue ungratefully. 

“It must take a lot of people to do all these 
things,” commented Ethel Brown. 

“Three if you can get them; one to turn him and 
rub his back, one to keep his head off the ground as 
he is rolled over, and the third to dry his feet and 
try to warm them.” 

“The one who does the rolling is the most impor- 
tant if there don’t happen to be many around.” 

“Put your strongest in that position. If you don’t 
bring your patient to in five minutes of this, try put- 
ting him on his back with a coat or something under 


LEARNING TO SWIM 65 

his shoulder-blades, and keeping his tongue out of 
his throat by tying it with a tape or rubber band.” 



“One person kneels back of the patient’s head and takes hold of his 
arms between the elbow and the wrist and pulls them back 
along the ground until the hands touch above his head. This 
draws the air out of the lungs.” 


“It’s Ethel Brown’s turn now,” remonstrated 
Ethel Blue, but she was silenced by a rubber band 
from Roger’s pocket. 



“When you move them to the side of the body again the air is 
pressed out of the lungs.” 


“Then one person kneels back of his head and 
takes hold of his arms between the elbow and the 
wrist and pulls them back along the ground until 
5 


66 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


the hands touch above his head. This draws the 
air into the lungs, and when you move them to the 
sides of the body again the air is pressed out of the 
lungs just as in natural breathing.’’ 

“How long do you keep it up?” asked Ethel 
Brown interestedly while Ethel Blue made silent 
demonstrations of disapproval. 

“For hours — two at least. Many a man has been 
resuscitated after a longer time. Make the move- 
ments about fifteen times a minute — that’s pretty 
nearly what Nature does — and have relays of help- 
ers. There you have the idea,” and Roger slipped 
off Ethel Blue’s gag, and helped her up. 

“When he really does breathe — ^my, he must be 
glad when you do get through with him!” — she 
panted; “then you begin to work on his circulation, I 
suppose.” 

“Correct, ma’am. Rub him from his feet upward 
so as to drive the blood toward the heart and pack 
him around with hot water bottles and hot cloths. 
Give him some coffee to drink and put him to bed 
in a room with plenty of fresh air.” 

“He would be tired out, I should think, after hav- 
ing his arms waved around for hours.” 

“He is,” agreed Ethel Blue. 

“They generally go right to sleep from exhaus- 
tion.” 

“I’m not surprised. Personally I think I’d rather 
be rescued before these vigorous measures had to 
be applied to me.” 

“The best way to rescue a person who gets over 
his depth is to grab him from behind.” 


LEARNING TO SWIM 


67 


“So he won’t grab you.” 

“Exactly. A person who thinks he’s drowning 
loses his head and struggles with his rescuer and 



“Throw yourself on your back. Put your arms above your head 
with the backs of the hands together.” 


perhaps they both drown. The best way is to grasp 
his arms from behind above the elbows and put your 



“Push your legs down and as far apart as they will go. Bring the 
arms in a steady sweep down to the sides. 

knees in the small of his back. That will throw him 
into a position where he will float. Then hold his 


68 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


arm with your left hand and swim on your back using 
your right arm and your legs.*’ 

“But I haven’t learned to swim on my back.” 



“Bring the legs together and forward you’ll shoot.” 
End of arm stroke. 


“Learn how as soon as you can get on pretty well 
the other way. Throw yourself on your back and 
push your legs down and as far apart as they will 
go; then bring them together and forward you’ll 
shoot. Draw them up to the body again, spread 
out, clap your heels — there you are. It’s just like 
swimming on your face — ” 

“Except that you’re upside down.” 

“You can help on by putting your arms above 
your head with the backs of the hands together and 
then bringing them in a steady sweep down to the 
sides. You’d better learn this; it’s the thing to do 
when you have the cramp yourself as well as when 
the other fellow has it.” 

“Now let us practice on you,” suggested Ethel 
Blue. 

“No, you don’t,” replied Roger emphatically, and 
seizing his coat he made a run for liberty, escaping 
through the front door and slamming it after him. 


CHAPTER VI 


ETHEL BROWN A HERGINE 

D icky was no longer asleep. Roger’s slam- 
ming of the front door had roused him and 
after drowsily rubbing his eyes he had rolled off his 
cot and stared out of the window to see in what 
direction Roger was going, for he recognized the 
footsteps of the brother he admired extravagantly. 

Not seeing him from the front window he turned 
the latch of the door that opened on the upper porch 
and looked out toward Mayville. 

Again there was no Roger and the youngster, still 
only half awake, wandered about the room hunting 
for amusement. The house was perfectly quiet, 
for the Ethels, tired after their strenuous afternoon, 
were lying in the hammocks behind the house, Ethel 
Blue working on a new basket and Ethel Brown 
drawing a design that she hoped to develop into a 
stencil. 

Dicky’s cot was in Helen’s room and she had ac- 
cumulated on her bureau a variety of souvenirs, most 
of which were pinned to the muslin that framed her 
dressing glass. Dicky climbed on a chair and exam- 
ined them attentively. Most of them seemed to 
him quite valueless and he wondered that a person 
as grown up as Helen should want to keep them. 
Wandering into his mother’s room his eye was at- 
69 


70 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

tracted by a shining tray on which stood an alcohol 
lamp. A box of matches lay beside it ready for in- 
stant use if hot water should be needed in the night. 
Dicky had not seen the lamp in action many times 
and never had he had the privilege of lighting it. 
It seemed an unparalleled opportunity. 

Its present situation was not convenient, however. 
The shelf it was on was far too high. Still, that was 
easily remedied. Dragging forward a chair he 
mounted upon it, secured his prize, and then labori- 
ously clambered down, breathing heavily from his 
exertions. Helen’s bureau was not so high and on 
it he placed his treasure, kneeling in front of it on 
the chair which was still where he had left it. 

Careful scrutiny resolved the apparatus into its 
parts. On top was a cup. He took it off its tripod 
and laid it on the tray. The tripod underneath held 
in its embrace a metal container — the thing out of 
which the pretty blue flame had shot up when Mother 
set a match on top. Dicky separated these two parts 
and pushed one to one side of the bureau and one 
to the other. 

Where had the matches gone to? There they 
were, on the floor, and their rescue necessitated a 
scramble down and up again. They were safety 
matches and the production of a light from their un- 
responsive heads was only accomplished by accident 
after many attempts which strewed the floor with 
broken bits of wood. 

At last. Oh, joy! a flame flashed up and Dick in 
ecstasy slipped off tho cover of the lamp and dropped 
the match into the inside. It was a rapturous sight. 


ETHEL BROWN A HEROINE 


71 

The light leaped tall and slender, and bent as a 
breath of air from the window touched it. 

Dicky leaned back in his seat and watched it as 
from an orchestra stall. It was the prettiest thing 
he had ever personally produced and he was proud 
of his handiwork. 

A stronger puff made a fairy dance of flame. An- 
other puff came in from the door and crossed it and 
together they raced through the door into mother’s 
room and disappeared. But they seemed to have 
started a small tempest of breezes. One after an- 
other dashed in from door and window and played 
tag and jostled the flickering light. It bent this 
way and that way and crouched back into its holder 
and then leaped out just in time to meet a slap from 
a bold wind that drew heavily across the room and 
in passing, sent the flame. Zip 1 against Helen’s 
muslin draperies. 

In a second they were ablaze, shooting upward to- 
ward the ceiling. Dicky watched the fire, fascinated 
with its speed and its faint crackle as if it were 
chuckling with amusement at its own pranks. 

But fun never lasts very long; Dicky had found 
that out before. In a minute pieces of muslin, all 
turned black now, began to float down on him. The 
mirror was not so pretty as it had been, even with 
Helen’s silly souvenirs on it; indeed it had a queer 
look now as if it was cross at what was going on. 
In fact, it cracked on one side with a noise like a cat 
spitting with rage. 

Dicky found himself too warm now that one of 
the muslin curtains from the window had blown over 


72 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

and caught a piece of the flame on its corner. It 
was nice to watch, but it was rather hot in this room 
and he was tired of it anyway. He thought he 
would go down stairs and see if the Ethels were at 
home. 

But when he turned toward the entry door it was 
closed and another prank of the wind had shut the 
door into Mother’s room. He could not get out 
anywhere except on to the roof of the porch and that 
had no stairs. The room roared in his ears and a 
bit of the hot black stuff fell on his hand. He 
rushed on to the porch and screamed a strong, pierc- 
ing shriek that sent all the blood in her body into 
Ethel Brown’s heart when it reached the back of the 
house and her ears. 

With a leap she left the hammock and her draw- 
ing behind her and dashed into the house. 

“Dicky! Dicky!” she called frantically as she 
plunged upstairs. “Dicky! Dicky!” 

Into Mrs. Morton’s room she ran and then 
pushed open the door into Helen’s. A rush of smoke 
and flame filled her mouth and made her eyes smart. 

“Dicky!” she screamed. “Dicky! Where are 
you?” 

Chiming with the crackle of the fire sh-e heard 
sobbing. 

“Dicky !” she cried again. “Ethel’s coming. Call 
me again.” 

She dropped to the floor where the smoke seemed 
lighter and under it she saw a gleam of blue — 
Dicky’s rompers — on the porch. Creeping on her 
hands and knees she reached through the door and 


ETHEL BROWN A HEROINE 


73 


seized him by the abundant fulness of his garments. 
He yelled remonstrance as she tried to draw him 
back into the smoke-filled room. 

“It’s all right,” she choked. “Shut your eyes and 
hold your nose. Don’t be afraid; Sister’s got you,” 
and with talk and wheedling she pulled him through 
the porch door and across the floor to the entry door. 
As she opened it the fresh draught caused a new out- 
burst of flame. She managed to shut it in. She 
and Dicky were safe on the outside. 

“Run down stairs quick,” she ordered Dicky; 
“run to James Hancock’s and tell him the house is 
on fire.” 

As she spoke a whimpering caught her ear. It 
came from Ethel Blue who was crouching on the 
stairs. 

“The house is on fire, don’t you hear it?” shrieked 
Ethel Brown. “What’s the matter? Can’t you 
help ? Run and call ‘Fire.’ Run, I say.” 

Ethel Blue, stirred to life, disappeared, and 
Ethel Brown seized one of the hand fire extinguishers 
which are in every Chautauqua cottage, and at- 
tempted to open the door into Helen’s room again. 
A scorching blast drove her back and she gave up 
the attempt. Thrusting her head out of the win- 
dow she screamed “Fire,” and at the same time saw 
Dicky running safely toward the Hancocks’. Even 
in her terror she noticed that in pulling him out of 
the burning room she had torn his ample bloomers. 
A hanging rag streamed from them as he ran. 

A new thought struck Ethel and she flung herself 
on the banisters and slid to the foot. When she 


74 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

looked from the window she had seen the red gleam 
of a fire alarm box on a tree almost in front of the 
house. She rushed to it and beat on the glass with 
her fists. 

Almost immediately the wild shriek of a siren tore 
the air. Footsteps came running from all sides. 
She had been glad that it happened that no one was 
at home, but she was equally glad when she saw 
Mary running from the direction of the Pier. Mar- 
garet Hancock called to her that Dicky was safe. 
Ethel waved her understanding, and seizing the hand 
of Ethel Blue who appeared from somewhere and 
clung timidly to her skirt she ran back into the 
house to get the silver from the dining-room. 

“Take this and this and this,” she whispered 
breathlessly, piling Dicky’s mug and a handful of 
forks and another of spoons into Ethel Blue’s up- 
held skirt. “Here’s the butter dish. It’s lucky we 
left the tea set at home. Now then, take those to 
the Hancocks’ and I’ll go upstairs and see if I can 
save any of our clothes.” 

“Oh, Ethel, I ought to go with you,” whimpered 
Ethel Blue. 

“Run, I tell you,” commanded Ethel Brown who 
found herself growing cooler every minute. 

People were coming into the house now and rush- 
ing about with chairs in their hands, uncertain where 
to set them down. A woman from the boarding 
house next door began to carry out the china and 
lay it on the grass, and Mary tossed pans out of the 
kitchen window and piled the wash tubs full of gro- 
ceries for the men to move. 


ETHEL BROWN A HEROINE 75 

From the lake front rose shouting and along the 
road came one of the chemical engines hauled by the 
bellboys of the hotel. Another rolled down the 
steep hill from the Post Office, these men struggling 
as hard to hold it back as those from the hotel were 
pulling. Down the same hill came the water hose, 
and yet other chemicals from the business block, the 
Book Store, wherever they were kept ready for 
emergencies. For a few minutes every man was a 
fire chief and every volunteer shouted commands 
which he himself was the first to disobey. 

But order developed in an amazingly short time. 
The boarding house between the Mortons and the 
Hancocks caught fire in spite of the efforts of a 
bucket brigade which tried to wet down the roof. 
Consternation reigned when a shout drew the at- 
tention of the firemen to the flaming of the sun-dried 
shingles in one corner and almost at the same mo- 
ment to the flash of a curtain fired by a mass of 
cinders whirled from the Mortons’ cottage right 
through an open window. 

It was a shout of apprehension, for if this large 
building went it would be increasingly difficult to 
save the houses closely crowded beyond. At this 
critical instant the honk of an automobile horn drew 
the crowd’s attention. The unusual will do that 
even in times of stress and automobiles are not al- 
lowed inside the Assembly grounds. 

‘Tt’s Ma3wille! It’s the Mayville hose,” cried 
some one, and a hoarse cry of satisfaction went 
through the onlookers. Just in the nick of time they 
came, two hose wagons usually drawn by man power 


76 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

but now attached to the automobiles of two public- 
spirited citizens who heard the telephone summons 
and offered their cars which happened to be stand- 
ing at the sidewalk. 

The salvage crew was working hard in both 
houses now, and the Hancocks thought it best to re- 
move some of their goods and chattels in case the 
flames spread beyond the boarding house. The 
helpers were increased by the audience from the 
organ recital in the Amphitheatre who left the 
program unfinished at the first note of the siren. 
An unceasing procession marched from the burn- 
ing and the threatened cottages to Miller Park bear- 
ing china and glass and furniture. Some one threw 
Grandmother Emerson’s trunk out of the window. 
It proved not to be locked and its contents spurted 
all over the walk before the house. Ethel Brown 
saw it and stuffed clothes and books back into it and 
called to two men to take it away. Some excited 
person in the boarding house began to toss bureau 
drawers down from the top of the front porch. 
Most of them broke when they struck the ground 
but the people below gathered up the collars and 
cravats and underwear and ran with them to the 
Park. A young girl who was found wandering 
about the lower floor carefully carrying half an 
apple pie which she had rescued from the pantry 
was led in the same direction. 

Mrs. Emerson, rushing across the green from her 
embroidery lesson on the veranda of the Arcade, met 
Margaret Hancock tugging Dicky along In the direc- 
tion of the lawn. He was sobbing wildly and his 


ETHEL BROWN A HEROINE 77 


grandmother took him in her arms and sat down on 
a chair amid the piles of furniture to comfort him. 
From the direction of the Hall of Philosophy where 
they had been awaiting the coming of the Reading 
Hour came Mrs. Morton and Mr. Emerson, break- 
ing into a run as they approached near enough to 
see that the fire was in the direction of their cottage. 
As they rushed across Miller Park they almost 
stumbled over Ethel Blue, curled up miserably on 
top of the old stump that is said to have supported 
many eloquent orators in the olden days. 

“Are you hurt, dear child? Quick, tell me,” de- 
manded Mrs. Morton, while her father ran on to the 
scene of action. 

“Pm not hurt. It’s our house. I didn’t help 
Ethel,” cried the child. 

“Where is Ethel? Is Dicky safe?” 

The questions seemed to increase the child’s 
agony. 

“Can’t you tell me? Oh, there’s Grandmother 
with Dicky. Stay with her. And — listen to me — ” 

Her aunt seized Ethel by the arm and looked her 
squarely in the eyes. 

“You’re perfectly safe here. Try to control 
yourself. Do whatever Grandmother says.” 

But the child was too wretched to be of any as- 
sistance until Mrs. Emerson gave her a specified 
task. 

“Take Dicky over to the Arcade,” she directed, 
“and keep him there. Then I can go and help.” 

Ethel Blue obeyed miserably, for her very soul 
was ashamed of her fear. Her father a soldier and 


78 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

she this weeping, curled-up bunch of cowardice! 
She burst into tears again as she crossed the green. 
Dicky, whom Mrs. Emerson had only partially suc- 
ceeded in quieting, broke into renewed cries and 
the two soon became the center of a group of women 
whose sympathy served to increase the children’s 
demonstrations. 

“Poor lambs, they’re frightened to death,” said 
a cool, sweet voice, and a pink-cheeked, white-haired 
woman made her way through the throng and spoke 
to Ethel Blue. 

“Come in where it is quiet,” she said. “Now 
drink this water and bathe your eyes and sit down 
here quietly. Show the little boy these pictures,” 
she directed, and Ethel, having something definite 
to do, obeyed her. 

“I shall be just outside here if you need me. 
There’s nothing to be afraid of.” 

Back at the fire the helpers were increased by the 
arrival of the onlookers at the baseball game. They 
had come on the run from the lower end of the 
grounds, the two teams, the umpire, and the scorer 
bringing up the rear. Roger and James and Helen 
were with this crowd, and they dashed frantically 
into action when they found out what houses were 
involved. James helped the men who were re- 
charging the chemical engines. Helen joined the 
procession carrying household goods to the Park. 

“Where are the children?” Roger screamed into 
his grandfather’s ear above the throb of the water 
from the hose wagons. 

“There’s Ethel Brown carrying those clothes. 


ETHEL BROWN A HEROINE 


79 


Your mother’s in Miller Park. I don’t know where 
the others are. I’m going in to find your grand- 
mother,” and while Roger rushed after Ethel to 
question her the old gentleman dashed into the burn- 
ing cottage and straight up the stairs to his wife’s 
room. 

It was only a few minutes before he was brought 
out again by two of the firemen and stretched on the 
beach by the lake, with a doctor from the crowd 
working over him and a nurse who had left her rest 
hour at the hospital to run to the fire, helping him 
give first-aid. When he recovered consciousness 
they summoned help and carried him to Miller Park 
and laid him on a mattress while the physician went 
back to see if his services were required by any other 
sufferers. 

Fortunately for Mr. Emerson’s peace of mind 
his wife soon discovered him and told him of the 
safety of all the other members of the family. 

It was almost dark when the “All out” signal 
sounded from the fire-house, and the Mortons be- 
gan to think of where they should spend the night. 
Offers of shelter were plentiful both to them and to 
the boarders, but Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Emerson 
accepted Mrs. Hancock’s offer. The Hancocks 
owned the cottage on the other side of the one the 
Mortons had been occupying. By good luck, it 
seemed now, it had not been let for the summer, 
and by greater good luck it had come out of the fire 
unscathed, thanks to the direction of the wind. It 
was furnished and ready for use, and Mrs. Han- 
cock and Margaret and James busied themselves 


8o ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


carrying over bedding and towels and table linen. 
Roger and several neighbors bore Mr. Emerson 
from the Park on his mattress and established him 
in a comfortable lower bedroom. Ethel Blue and 
Dicky were found by Mrs. Morton in the art store 
and brought home. Helen was sent to the Indiana 
Cottage to order supper sent in, for Mary’s de- 
partment would not be in order until the next day. 

Every member of the family was accounted for 
when the Director of the Institution stopped at the 
porch to see if he could do anything for their com- 
fort. 

“This young woman is a heroine,” he said, pat- 
ting Ethel Brown’s shoulder. “I watched her all 
through and she behaved like a grown woman.” 

Ethel Brown, her skirt torn, her blouse smoke- 
begrimed and her face dirty, smiled at him shyly, 
and murmured “Thank you.” 



(( 


‘It’s all right,’ she choked 

got 


. . . ‘Don’t he afraid,, 
you” 


Sister’s 


[See p. 73] 











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CHAPTER VII 


DOROTHY COOKS 

D orothy and her mother had a room in a 
house near the trolley gate. When they had 
first come to Chautauqua the year before a sign in 
front of the house had attracted their attention. It 
read: 


LIGHT HOUSE 
KEEPING 
PERMITTED 


Light housekeeping was just what Mrs. Smith 
wanted to do, so she made inquiries and was able 
to complete arrangements so satisfactory that she 
went to the same place when she returned for this 
second summer. 

There were several reasons why she did not want 
to go to a boarding house. In the first place she 
wanted to have her expenses as small as possible, 
and in the next she wanted to teach Dorothy some- 
thing about cooking, for she believed that every 
girl ought to know something of this important 
branch of home-making and in the wandering life 

6 8i 


82 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


they had led it had not always been possible for 
them to live otherwise than in a boarding house. 

“You can take the domestic science work at the 
Girls’ Club,” she had said, “and then we can have 
our little home here and you can apply your knowl- 
edge for our own benefit.” 

So well had this plan worked and so competent 
had Dorothy become in simple cooking that this 
summer she was specializing in cooking for invalids. 

“It’s mighty lucky I took the invalids’ cooking,” - 
she exclaimed as her mother came in from the art 
store at noon the day after the fire, and sat down 
to the nice little dinner that Dorothy had prepared. 

“It’s one of the things that may be valuable to 
you in many ways and at any time.” 

“It’s valuable now. Have I told you about my 
friends at the Girls’ Club, two cousins, both named 
Ethel Morton?” 

“Morton? What are their fathers’ names? 
Where do they live?” said Mrs. Smith, speaking 
more quickly than was usual with her. 

“I don’t know their fathers’ names — their fathers 
aren’t here.” 

“Oh I” Mrs. Smith leaned back in her chair as if 
she were especially weary. 

“They live in the cottage that was burned yester- 
day.” 

“They do I I wonder, then, if it wasn’t one of 
them that brought a little boy to the art store while 
the fire was going on.” 

“Did she call him Dicky?” 

“Yes, Dicky.” 


DOROTHY COOKS 


83 


‘‘Did the girl have blue eyes or brown?” 

“I didn’t notice — or, yes, I believe I did — they 
were blue.” 

“That was Ethel Blue, then. They call the other 
one Ethel Brown to tell them apart. This morn- 
ing they didn’t come to the club because they had 
so much to do to put their new cottage in order, 
but Ethel Brown ran in just for a minute to ask me 
if I could cook some special things for her grand- 
father while he was sick. He was hurt yesterday 
at the fire.” 

“Oh, poor man.” 

“It’s not very serious, Ethel Brown says, only 
he’s bruised and he swallowed a lot of smoke and 
he can’t eat what the rest of them do.” 

“Haven’t they a maid?” 

“They only have one here, and she has been 
Dicky’s nurse until a little while ago, and he got 
so scared yesterday that he’s almost sick to-day and 
keeps calling for Mary all the time. So Mrs. Mor- 
ton is cooking for the family and she can’t manage 
to do special things for her father.” 

“Do they want you to go there?” 

“The kitchen is too small. That’s why the 
grandmother or the older sister doesn’t do it. They 
want me to make broths and jellies and things at 
home here and take them down there.” 

“You must do your very best, dear. It will be 
a splendid chance for you to take such a responsi- 
bility.” 

“The doctor says Mr. Emerson is to have chicken 
broth and toast at three o’clock, so I went to their 


84 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

house after the club and got a tray and a small bowl 
and some plates, and then stopped at the meat 
market on the way home, so the broth is started 
now.” 

She waved her hand toward the corner of the 
room where the low-turned flame of a gas plate was 
causing a soft simmering in a large saucepan. 

“You put the chicken in cold water, didn’t you, 
to draw the goodness out?” 

“Yes, indeed. I cut up the chicken and cracked 
the 'bones so that all that inside goodness wouldn’t 
be wasted. A quart and a pint of water covered 
it well and it’s going to stay on until the meat all 
falls to pieces. That will be about three hours 
from the time I put it on.” 

“Are you going to put rice in it?” 

“I’m going to take down the rice in a separate 
little bowl this time because I don’t know whether 
Mr. Emerson likes rice.” 

“Be sure you don’t over-cook it. Every grain 
should be separate.” 

“I learned the very simplest way to cook rice. 
Wash it and put it into boiling salted water, a quart 
of water to a cupful of rice. Putting the rice in 
will stop the boiling, so when it boils up again you 
give it just one stir to keep the kernels from stick- 
ing to the bottom of the saucepan. You mustn’t 
stir it any more or you’ll break the grains. It will 
be done in about twenty minutes. Then you pour 
it lightly into a colander and turn it lightly from the 
colander into your serving dish, and there you are, 
every grain separate.” 


DOROTHY COOKS 85 

“If you save the rice water it serves as a vege- 
table stock for a soup.” 

“Our teacher told us a story about the value 
of rice water. It was in a famine time in India 
and some of the natives went to the English and 
said that if they could have the water the camp rice 
was cooked in they wouldn’t ask for anything else.” 

“They knew how strong and good it is. Mr. 
Emerson won’t want more than a cupful of chicken 
broth this afternoon — ^what are you going to do with 
the rest of it?” 

“One gill of it will make chicken custard with the 
beaten yolks of two eggs and a pinch of salt. You 
cook it in a double boiler until it is thick.” 

“That ought to taste good and be nourishing, 
too.” 

“I shall put on another gill of the broth, with a 
teaspoonful of Irish moss if I can find the kind that 
is prepared in powder form. After that has boiled 
about fifteen minutes I shall strain it through a piece 
of cheesecloth into a cup and when it has stiffened 
and I’m ready to serve it, I’ll turn it out on a pretty 
little plate and lay a sprig of parsley on top.” 

“That will just about use up the broth from one 
chicken.” 

“I can give Mr. Emerson a variety by making 
mutton broth. A quart of cold water to a pound 
of meat is the right proportion, and then you make 
it just like chicken broth.” 

“You mustn’t forget to trim off all the fat you 
can before you put it in, and to skim off any bubbles 
of fat that rise to the top.” 


86 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


shan’t make any beef tea unless they ask for 
it especially, because the doctors say nowadays that 
there isn’t much nourishment in it, it’s just stimu- 
lating. I shall give my patient cereals and porridges 
made exactly according to the directions that are on 
the boxes.” 

“A thoroughly baked white potato served piping 
hot is delicious. Break it open at the last minute 
and put into it a dab of butter and a teaspoon of 
cream and a wee bit of salt, and a dash of pepper 
if your patient can stand pepper. A baked potato 
goes well with a broiled breast of chicken.” 

‘‘If this ‘case’ of mine lasts long enough so that 
I have to make more chicken broth I shall cut off 
the breast before I cut up the chicken for the broth.” 

“Broil it until it is quite brown, and after you 
have put it on a warm plate ready to serve, add a 
tiny dab of butter and a little salt. Do the same 
with a lamb chop, and be sure that every bit of 
meat except the choice mouthful or two is cut away 
before you cook it.” 

“I shan’t let the butcher trim it, though. Those 
bits that come off help out in a soup.” 

“Tapioca jelly is something you must try for one 
of your invalid’s desserts.” 

“The doctor said he must have fruits mostly, but 
I’d like to try the tapioca once.” 

“Take half a cupful of tapioca and two cupfuls 
of water, the juice and a little of the grated rind 
of half a lemon, and a teaspoonful of sugar. Soak 
the tapioca in the water for four hours. Stir in the 
sugar just as you put it all in the double boiler. 


DOROTHY COOKS 


87 

Cook it for about three-quarters of an hour. You 
should stir it often and it ought to be perfectly clear 
when it is done. Stir in the lemon at the last minute 
and then pour it into cups or molds.” 

“That sounds good to me. I think I’ll try it 
for our own dessert some day.” 

“When you make toast always be careful to cut 
your slices of bread all of the same thickness and 
to cut off the crusts. Then warm the slices first and 
afterwards brown them delicately. When you make 
milk toast butter the slices and sprinkle on a few 
grains of salt and then pour over them a cupful of 
boiling milk thickened with half a teaspoonful of 
flour. Do it carefully. It is care about little things 
that makes a dish palatable for an invalid, you must 
remember.” 

“Della Watkins gave me some flowers to-day, so 
I shall have one to put on the waiter.” 

“I want to tell you, dear, why I am especially 
glad that you are having this opportunity to show 
that you can put your knowledge into actual prac- 
tice.” 

“I did last winter when I made the baskets for 
Christmas.” 

“You did wonderfully. You’ve noticed that I am 
always advising you to learn things that will be val- 
uable to you. I mean valuable in a money way 
as well as in giving pleasure to yourself and others.” 

Dorothy curled up in her mother’s lap and made 
a soft hum of assent. 

“The reason I’ve done that is because I’ve seen 
our little stock of money growing smaller and 


88 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


smaller all the time. Last winter I didn’t make 
quite enough at the art store to support us both, and 
I had to draw on our principal in spite of your doing 
so splendidly with your baskets.” 

“But this summer you’re all right, aren’t you?” 

“This summer I am meeting our expenses, but 
I’m not laying by a penny, and when the season 
ends here I don’t know where we shall go or what 
I can do. So you see that every cent you are able 
to make is a great help.” 

“If I prepare these things all right for Ethel’s 
grandfather I won’t be scared if I have a chance to 
do it again.” 

“Certainly you won’t. Every success gives con- 
fidence.” 

“We might start a kitchen somewhere in an espe- 
cially unhealthy neighborhood and I could make in- 
valids’ stuff all the time at a hundred dollars a tray.” 

Mrs. Smith laugh e,d. 

“That’s not such a bad idea,” she agreed. “At 
any rate we must always have faith that work o«f 
some sort will be given to us. It hasn’t failed as 
yet, even when things looked pretty bad.” 

“There was a postcard in the picture booth in the 
pergola the other day that said, Have Faith and 
Hustle.” 

“That’s good advice. Prudence without worry 
and energy without scatteration of mind and faith 
woven into it all; that’s my gospel.” 

After her mother had gone, Dorothy took out 
a pad and pencil and made a list of broths and 
dishes which she already knew how to make and 


DOROTHY COOKS 


another that she meant to ask her cooking teacher 
about. She knew that she had only to tell her 
teacher that she was putting her information into 
actual practice and she would have all the help that 
she needed. She wanted to rely on herself as much 
as she could, however. 

If there was just a shade of doubt in the back 
of her mind about the success of her cooking it was 
gone when she went in to Mr. Emerson’s room to 
take away the tray after he had finished his first 
meal of her preparation. 

“Perfectly delicious, child,” he whispered hoarsely, 
for his throat was still sore. “I shall want to be 
a king and engage you for my personal cook even 
after I get well. I think I can tackle another of 
those excellent combinations of yours in about four 
hours.” 

Dorothy was delighted and for the whole of the 
busiest week of her life she worked hard not only 
to have her cooking delicious, but to have the trays 
attractive. She never used the same cup and sau- 
cer twice in succession; at the shop in the business 
block she found funny little jelly molds for a few 
cents apiece, and Mr. Emerson never failed to notice 
that to-day he had a miniature jelly rabbit and the 
next day a tiny jelly watermelon. 

Mrs. Hancock let her forage in her china closet 
and she found there bowls of many patterns, the 
odds and ends of the home china sent here for sum- 
mer use. 

“They’re exactly what I want,” Dorothy cried 
and went off with them in triumph. There was al- 


90 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

ways a bit of parsley or watercress or a tender leaf 
of lettuce with the first part of the meal and a posy 
with the dessert. 

“I want especially to thank you for one care 
you’ve taken,” said Mr. Emerson on the day when 
he regretfully dismissed his cook with a roll of crisp 
bills in her capable hand. “I want to thank you for 
always having the hot things really hot and the cold 
things really coldJ^ 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE SPELLING MATCH 

T he evening of the Annual Spelling Match was 
one of those when the whole Emerson- 
Morton family down to Dicky went to the Amphi- 
theatre. Usually Mary or one of the older mem- 
bers of the family stayed at home with the children. 
On this occasion, however, Mr. Emerson had an- 
nounced that he intended to take part in the match so 
everybody was eager to be present to encourage him. 

The Amphitheatre was fuller than they had seen 
it yet when they reached it and made their way as far 
forward as possible so that they might hear all that 
was said. 

“Evidently this is popular,” remarked Mr. Emer- 
son to his daughter as he took his seat next to her, 
placing himself at the end of the bench so that he 
could get into the aisle quickly when the time came. 
There seemed to be an unusual spirit of gayety in 
the audience, they thought, for many people were 
being playfully urged by their friends to go up on 
to the stage, and others who had made up their 
minds to go were being coached by their companions 
who were giving out words from the C.L.S.C. books 
for them to practice on. 

A short flight of steps had been arranged at the 
front of the platform on which two rows of chairs 
91 - 


92 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

were placed ready for the contestants. At the back 
a large table was loaded with heavy dictionaries for 
the use of the judges who were to decide any ques- 
tions of doubt. 

A burst of applause greeted the Director of the 
Institution as he walked forward and introduced the 
announcer of words, a college president. After 
giving a short history of the Annual Spelling Match, 
which dated back to the early days of the Assembly, 
he announced that the contest of the evening was 
to be between representatives of New York, Penn- 
sylvannia, and Ohio on one side and the Rest of 
the World on the other. 

Amid the laughter that followed the announce- 
ment Helen whispered to Margaret who sat next 
to her — 

“Why New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio?” 

“They send more people here than any of the 
other states. You ought to see them stand up on 
Old First Night ! There are hordes of them.’' 

The Director went on to state the rules that were 
to govern the contestants. They must be over fif- 
teen years old. They might ask to have a word 
pronounced again but they could have only one 
chance to spell it. A spelling was to be accepted 
as correct if it were confirmed by any of the dic- 
tionaries on the stage — ^Worcester, Webster, the 
Standard, and the Century. The judges were pro- 
fessors from the faculty of the Summer Schools and 
their decision was to be final. No one who had 
taken a prize in previous years might enter. Lastly, 


THE SPELLING MATCH 


93 


a ten dollar gold piece was to add an extra induce- 
ment to enter the contest and to give an extra pleas- 
ure to the winner. 

“Now,” he concluded, “will the gladiators come 
forward, stating as they step on the platform on 
which side they are to fight.” 

There was a moment’s pause until a courageous 
few advanced to the front. The Director an- 
nounced their partisanship. They were all, as it 
happened, from New York, Pennsylvania, or Ohio 
and they sat down on the chairs at the right of the 
audience. 

The next detachment added two to their number 
and half a dozen to the other side. Mr. Emerson 
was in the next group to go forward. 

“There’s my mother behind your grandfather,” 
whispered Dorothy, who was between the two 
Ethels. They saw a slender woman with a mass of 
snow-white hair piled above a fresh face. 

“It’s the lady who took care of Dicky and me 
the day of the fire,” cried Ethel Blue. 

Bursts of applause greeted people who were well 
known. The editor of a newspaper in a near-by 
town was one of these favored ones and a teacher 
of stenography was another. Between the detach- 
ments the Director cheered on the laggards with 
humorous remarks, and after each joke there was 
sure to be heard from one part of the Amphitheatre 
or another a loudly whispered “You go” followed by 
a shrinking, “Oh, no, you go I” 


94 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

At last all the Tri-state chairs were filled while 
there remained two vacant places on the side of the 
Rest of the World. 

“It looks as if the Rest of the World was afraid 
to stand up against New York, Pennsylvania, and 
Ohio,” exclaimed the Director. “This can’t be 
true!” 

There was another pause and then two women 
rose at the same time. They were received by a 
hearty round of clapping. 

“Do you see who it is? Roger, Roger, do you 
see?” cried Helen, leaning across Margaret to touch 
her brother’s knee. 

“Good for her. Isn’t she the spunky mother!” 
answered Roger, while at the same moment Mar- 
garet and James were exclaiming, “Why, there’s our 
mother, too, going up with yours !” 

So the two brave little ladies took the last two 
seats for the defence of the Rest of the World and 
the announcer began to give out the words to the 
waiting fifty. 

It took only a minute to bring trouble, for a 
Tri-state woman went down on “typographical.” 
Others followed in rapid succession, every failure 
being as heartily applauded as every success. By 
the time that a girl mis-spelled “ebullitions” only 
seven representatives of the Rest of the World were 
left. A Kentuckian who had overpowered some 
giants was beaten by “centripetal”; Grandfather 
Emerson’s omission of a “p” in “handicapped,” 
Mrs. Morton’s desperate but unavailing struggle 
with the “I’s” in “unparalleled,” and Mrs, Han- 


THE SPELLING MATCH 


95 


cock’s Insertion of an undesirable “e” In “judgment” 
reduced the ranks of both sides to a brave pair of 
Tri-states faced by a solitary cosmopolitan. 

“It’s Mother, it’s Mother,” whispered Dorothy, 
clapping frantically, while the two Ethels told every- 
body near them, “It’s Dorothy’s mother. Isn’t she 
splendid!” 

“Correlation” and “exhilaration” were the bombs 
whose explosion swept away the last of the Tri- 
state forces, and Dorothy’s mother stood alone, the 
winner of the prize. 

“That was Dorothy’s mother who took the prize,” 
repeated Ethel Brown in high spirits to her grand- 
mother as she took her arm to pilot her home. 

“Dorothy’s mother! Why, that is the Mrs. 
Smith who is my embroidery teacher at the art 
store.” 

“It is ! How lovely for you to know Dorothy’s 
mother. Ethel, Granny knows Dorothy’s mother. 
She teaches her embroidery,” called Ethel to her 
cousin. 

“Don’t you know Dorothy said her mother was 
teaching embroidery in an art store in Illinois last 
winter? Oh, I almost want to learn from her my- 
self.” 

“Stick to your stenciling, child,” said Mrs. Mor- 
ton. “Does Dorothy embroider?” 

“We don’t know; we’ll ask her,” cried the two 
girls in chorus, and Ethel Brown added; “she makes 
ten kinds of baskets, and this year she’s doing sten- 
ciling in my class, and her mother says that if she 
does it as well as she did the baskets, she can study 


96 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

next year at the Arts and Crafts Shops with the 
grown people.” 

“She must have inherited her mother’s clever 
fingers,” commented Mrs. Morton. 

Roger and Helen, who had been walking with 
James and Margaret, stopped at their house and sat 
on the porch to round out this privileged evening 
until ten o’clock. The moonlight shone brilliantly 
on the lake and at its upper end, two or three miles 
away, the lights of Mayville twinkled through the 
trees. Boats and canoes were drawing in toward 
the shore, for Chautauqua custom demands that 
every one be at home by ten o’clock, and that quiet 
reign so that the people who have studying to do 
or are obliged to rise early for their classes and so 
must go to bed early may not be disturbed. 

Some of the boats landed at the dock just below 
the Hancocks’ house and their occupants stepped on 
the wet planks with happy shrieks of laughter; 
others went on to the lower dock in front of the 
hotel. 

“It always says in books that moonlight is ro- 
mantic,” said Roger. “I don’t see where the ro- 
mance comes in; it’s just easier to see your way 
round.” 

There were cries of protest from the two girls. 

“Girls always howl when you say a thing like 
that,” went on Roger, “as if a fellow was a hard- 
hearted fool, but I’d like to have you tell me where 
there is any romance in real life — any outside of 
books, I mean.” 

He stared challengingly at James as if he expected 


THE SPELLING MATCH 


97 


him either to support him or to contradict him, but 
James was a slow thinker and said nothing. Helen 
rushed in breathlessly. 

“It’s just the way you put things together. If 
you want to look at it that way there are things 
happening all the time that would look romantic in 
a story.” 

“What, I’d like to know,” demanded Roger. 
“Tell just one thing.” 

“Why — why — ” Helen hesitated, trying to put 
her feelings into words; “why, take to-night when 
Grandmother found out that it was Dorothy’s mother 
she had been taking embroidery lessons from. 
Somehow that seems to me romantic — to know one 
person and to know another person and then to 
find that they are relations.” 

Helen ended rather lamely, for Roger was shout- 
ing with laughter. 

“That sounds mighty commonplace to me,” he 
roared. 

“It would sound all right if a writer worked it 
up in a book.” James suddenly came to Helen’s 
rescue to her great gratification. “We’ve got a 
romance in our family,” he went on. 

“We have!” cried Margaret. “What is it?” 

“Perhaps it wouldn’t seem like one to Roger,” 
went on James, “but it always seemed to me it was 
romantic because it was different from the way things 
happen every day, and there was a chance for a 
surprise in it.” 

“I know what you mean,” cried Margaret. 
“Great-uncle George.” 

7 


98 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Yes/* acknowledged James. “He was our 
father’s uncle and he was a young man at the time 
of the Civil War. Fathers were sterner then than 
they are now and Uncle George’s father — Dad’s 
grandfather — insisted that he should go into a cer- 
tain kind of business that he didn’t like. They had 
some fierce quarrels and Uncle George ran off to 
the war and they never heard from him again.” 

“Didn’t he ever write home?” 

“They never got any letter from him,” said Mar- 
garet. “His mother always blamed herself that she 
didn’t write to him over and over again, even if she 
didn’t get any answer, so that he would know that 
somebody kept on loving him and looking for him 
to come back. But Great-grandfather forbade her 
to, and I guess she must have been meeker than 
women are now, just as Great-grandfather was 
stricter.” 

“Father says,” went on James, “that all through 
his boyhood he used to hope that his uncle would 
turn up, perhaps awfully rich or perhaps with ad- 
ventures to tell about. Now I call that romantic, 
don’t you, old man?” ended James defiantly. 

“Seems to me it would have been if he had turned 
up, but he didn’t,” retorted Roger, determined not 
to yield. 

“We have a disappearance story in our family, 
too,” said Helen. “I’d forgotten it. It’s nearer 
than yours; it’s our own aunt. Don’t you remem- 
ber, Roger? Mother told us about it, once.” 

“That’s so; so we have. Now that is romantic,” 
asserted Roger. 


THE SPELLING MATCH 


99 

‘‘Let’s hear it and see if it beats ours,” said 
James. 

“It was our Aunt Louise, Father’s and LFncle 
Richard’s sister. She was older than they. She fell 
in love with a man her father didn’t like.” 

“Ho,” grunted James; “that’s why you think your 
story is romantic — ^because there’s some love in it.” 

“It does make it more romantic, of course,” de- 
clared Margaret, going over to the other side. 

“He was a musician and Grandfather Morton 
didn’t think music was a man’s business. People 
used to be funny about things like that you know.” 

“That was because musicians and painters used to 
go round with long hair looking like jays.” So 
James summed up the causes of the previous gen- 
eration’s dislike of the masters of the arts. 

“I don’t know whether Aunt Louise’s musician 
was long on hair or not, but he was short on cash 
all right,” Roger took up the story. “Grandfather 
said he couldn’t support a wife and Aunt Louise said 
she’d take the chance, and so they ran away.” 

“She had more sand than sense, seems to me — if 
you’ll excuse my commenting on your aunt,” said 
James. 

“She had plenty of sand. She must have found 
out pretty soon that Grandfather was right, but she 
wouldn’t ask for help or come home again, and after 
a while they didn’t hear from her any more and now 
nobody knows where she is.” 

“I’m like your father, James,” said Helen; “I al- 
ways feel that some time she may turn up and tell 
us her adventures.” 


100 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“She must have been very brave and very loyal,” 
murmured Margaret. “What did she look like? 
Was she pretty?” 

“I haven’t any idea. Mother never saw her. 
She left home before Mother and Father were mar- 
ried.” 

“Father spoke to me about her once,” said Roger 
gravely. 

“Did he really?” cried Helen. “Mother told me 
he hadn’t mentioned her for years, it hurt him so 
to lose her.” 

“He told me she was the finest girl he ever knew 
except Mother, and he thought Grandfather made 
a mistake in not helping the fellow along and then 
letting Aunt Louise marry him. You see he sort of 
drove her into it by opposing her.” 

“Wouldn’t it be great if both our relatives should 
turn up,” cried Helen. “I suppose your uncle is 
too old now, even if he’s alive, but our aunt really 
may.” 

“Then Roger’ll have to admit that there’s ro- 
mance in real life.” 

“There are the chimes; we must go,” said Roger 
as “Annie Laurie” pealed out on the fresh evening 
air, and the Morton brother and sister said “Good- 
night” to the Hancock sister and brother and went 
down the path to their own cottage where Roger 
left Helen and then went on up the hill to his room 
in the Hall of Pedagogy. 


CHAPTER IX 


GRANDFATHER ARRANGES HIS TIME 

T he Mortons breakfasted rather later than 
most people at Chautauqua. This was on 
Roger’s account. He had to put his building into 
perfect order before the classes began to assemble 
at eight in the morning. He always did some of his 
sweeping the afternoon before after the students had 
left the Hall, but there was plenty of work for him in 
the early hour after he had reluctantly rolled off 
his cot. He had grown up with the Navy and Army 
ideals of extreme neatness, and experience was teach- 
ing him now that if he expected to have the rooms as 
tidy as his father would want to see them he must 
go to bed early and rise not long after the sun poked 
his rosy head over the edge of the lake. 

“Nix on sitting up to hear the chimes,” he con- 
fided to the family at breakfast the morning after 
the Spelling Match. “Last night’s the first time I’ve 
heard them in a week. That room is worth a lot 
to me just for the feeling it’s giving me that I’m. 
earning it, and I’m going to pay good honest work 
for it if it busts me.” 

“ ‘Bust’ means, I suppose, if you have to go to 
bed early and work till almost eight in the morning 
to do it,” translated his mother. “You’re quite 
right, my dear; that’s what your father would want 

lOI 


102 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


you to do. And none of us here have eight o’clock 
classes so we can just as well as not have our break- 
fast at eight and have the pleasure of seeing you 
here opposite me.” 

Ever since he was a little boy Roger had sat 
in his father’s seat when Lieutenant Morton was on 
duty. He felt that it was a privilege and that be- 
cause of it he represented the head of the family 
and must shoulder some of his father’s responsi- 
bilities. It made his behavior toward his mother 
and sisters and Ethel Blue and Dicky far more 
grown-up than that of most boys of his age, and 
his mother depended on him as few mothers except 
those in similar positions depend on sons of Roger’s 
age. 

Every time that Helen heard Roger mention his 
room she was stirred again with the desire that had 
filled her on the first day when Jo Sampson had 
offered it to him. She told herself over and over 
that she was doing as much as Roger, for since they 
only had one maid and Mary was busy all the time 
with the work necessary for so large a family, Helen 
waited on the table. She earned her meals by do- 
ing that just as much as if she were doing it in one 
of the boarding houses. Yet it did not seem to her 
just the same. She did not really want to wait on 
table in one of the boarding houses; she would have 
been frightened to death to do it, she thought, al- 
though she had been long enough at Chautauqua 
to see many nice young teachers and college girls 
in the boarding cottages and at the hotel and in the 
restaurant, and if they were not frightened, why 


GRANDFATHER ARRANGES TIME 103 

should she be ? Perhaps they were and didn’t show 
it. Perhaps it was because it would take courage 
for her to attempt it that she wanted to so much. 
Whatever the reason, she could not seem to rid 
her mind of the idea that it would be delightful to 
earn money or its equivalent. This morning Roger’s 
talk about his room roused her again. 

“Mother,” she said, “Margaret Hancock is going 
to take sewing from the teacher in the Hall of 
Pedagogy. Do you think I might, too?” 

“What kind of sewing, dear? Embroidery?” 

“No, Mother dear; it’s the purely domestic va- 
riety; plain sewing and buttonholes and shirtwaists 
and middy blouses and how to hang a skirt, if I 
get so far along. Don’t you think I’d be a more 
useful girl if I knew how to do some of those 
things?” 

“You’re a useful daughter now, dear; but I think 
it would be a splendid thing for you to learn just 
the kind of sewing that we need in the family.” 

“That every family needs,” corrected Helen. 

The mother looked closely at her daughter. 

“Yes,” she assented. 

Helen had a plan in her mind and she had not 
meant to tell her mother until the sewing class had 
proved a success and she had learned to do all the 
things she had mentioned, but she was straightfor- 
ward and she could not resist sharing her secret with 
Mrs. Morton. 

“I meet so many girls here who are doing some- 
thing to pay for their holiday, just the way those 
porters who brought our things down the first morn- 


104 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

ing are, that I’m just crazy to do something, too,” 
she explained breathlessly. “It seemed to me that 
if I learned how to do the kind of sewing that 
everybody must have I could get some work to do 
here and make some money.” 

Mrs. Morton and Mrs. Emerson looked at each 
other in amazement. Neither spoke for a moment. 

“Why do you need more money, dear? You 
have your allowance.” 

“I have plenty of money for all I need; what I 
want is to feel independent. I don’t like to feel that 
I am a drag on Father and not a help.” 

“But Father is glad to pay for your living, dear. 
Just the fact that he has a big, loving daughter is 
enough return for him.” 

“I know. Father’s a darling. I know he’s glad 
to pay for Roger’s education, too, but when Roger 
earns his room you think it’s perfectly fine and when 
I want to do the same thing you seem to think I’m 
wanting to do something horrid.” 

Helen was nearly in tears and the fact that her 
mother made no reply did not calm her. Mr. Emer- 
son shook his head slowly. 

“It’s in the air, my dear,” he said to Mrs. Mor- 
ton. 

“You’re partly right, Helen,” said Mrs. Morton 
at last. “Since Roger is a boy we expect him to 
earn his living as soon as he is prepared to do so. 
We should not want him to do it now because his 
duty now is to secure his education and to make him- 
self strong and well so that he’ll be a vigorous and 
intelligent man. We had not thought of your earn- 


GRANDFATHER ARRANGES TIME 105 

ing your living outside your home, but if you want to 
prepare yourself to do so you may. I’m sure your 
father would have no objection if you selected a 
definite occupation of which he and I approved and 
fitted yourself to fill it well. But he would object 
to your taxing your strength by working now just 
as he would object to Roger’s doing the same 
thing.” 

“But you’re pleased when Roger earns his room 
and you seem to think it funny when I want to,” 
repeated Helen. 

“Perhaps you are right, dear. It must be be- 
cause Roger is a boy and so we like to see him 
turning naturally to being useful and busy just as 
he must be all the time in a few years.” 

“But why can’t I?” 

“I have no objection to your learning how to sew 
this summer, certainly, if that will satisfy you ; and 
if you’ll learn how to make the Ethels’ middy blouses 
and Dicky’s little suits and rompers. I’ll be glad 
to pay you for them just as I pay a sewing woman 
at home for making them.” 

“Oh, Mother,” almost sobbed Helen, “that will 
be good; only,” she nodded after a pause, “it won’t 
help Father a bit. The money ought to come out 
of somebody else’s pocket, not his.” 

“That’s true,” admitted Mrs. Morton, “but I 
should have to pay some one to do the work, so 
why not you? Unless, of course, you wanted to 
help Father by contributing your work.” 

“That sounds as if I didn’t want to help Father 
or I’d do it for nothing,” exclaimed Helen. “I do 


io6 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


really want to help Father, but I want to do it by 
relieving Father of spending money for me. I’d 
like to pay my board 1” 

“This generation doesn’t seem to understand 
family co-operation,” said Grandfather Emerson. 

“I do want to co-operate,” insisted Helen. “I 
just said I’d like to pay my board and co-operate by 
contributing to the family expenses in that way. 
What I don’t want is to have any work I do taken 
for granted just as if we were still pioneers in 
the wilderness when every member of the family 
had to give the labor of his hands. I’m willing to 
work — I’m trying to induce Mother to let me 
work — but I want a definite value put on it just 
as there will be a definite value put on Roger’s work 
when he gets started. I’d like to make the middy 
blouses for the Ethels and have Mother pay me 
what they were worth, and then pay Mother for my 
board. Then I should feel that I was really earn- 
ing my living. That’s the way Roger will do when 
he’s earning a salary. Why shouldn’t I do it?” 

Helen stopped, breathless. She was too young 
to realize it, but it was the cry of her time that she 
was trying to express — the cry of the woman to be 
considered as separate as the man, to be an individ- 
ual. 

“I understand,” said Mrs. Morton soothingly; 
“but suppose you begin in the way I suggest; and 
meanwhile we’ll put our minds on what you will 
do after you leave college. There are a good many 
years yet before you need actually to go out into the 
world.” 


GRANDFATHER ARRANGES TIME 107 

“Then I may go this morning and arrange for 
my lessons?” 

“Certainly you may.” 

“And — and I’m sorry I’ve done all the talking 
this morning,” apologized Helen. “I’m afraid it 
hasn’t been a very pleasant breakfast.” 

“A very interesting one,” said Mr. Emerson. 
“It shows that every generation has to be handled 
differently from the last one,” he nodded to his 
daughter. 

“Nobody has ever been up on the hill to see my 
room — if Helen will excuse my mentioning it,” said 
Roger. 

Helen flushed. 

“Don’t make fun of me, Roger. You do what 
you want to and it’s all right and I want to do the 
same thing and it’s all wrong,” burst out Helen 
once more. 

“There, dear, we don’t want to hear it all again. 
Go and arrange for your lessons and as soon as you 
can make good blouses I’d like to have a dozen for 
the Ethels.” 

“You’re a duck. Mother,” and Helen ran out of 
the room, smiling, though with a feeling that she 
did not quite understand it all. And well she might 
be puzzled, for what she was struggling with has 
puzzled wiser heads than hers, and is one of the 
new problems that has been brought us by the 
twentieth century. 

“I’ll walk up with you to see your room, Roger,” 
offered Mr. Emerson, “if you’re sure I can go with- 
out blundering into some class.” 


io8 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“I’ll steer you O.K. Come on, sir,” cried Roger 
and he and his grandfather left the cottage as Mrs. 
Emerson started for her nine o’clock class In the 
Hall of Christ to be followed by the ten o’clock 
Devotional Hour and the eleven o’clock lecture In 
the Amphitheatre. There she would be joined by 
Mrs. Morton, who went every morning at nine to 
the Woman’s Club In the Hall of Philosophy, and 
then to a ten o’clock French class. Up to the time 
of the fire the Ethels had escorted Dicky to the 
kindergarten and had then run on to the Girls’ 
Club. 

Roger and his grandfather strolled northward 
along the shore of the lake talking about Helen. 

“I understand exactly how she feels,” said Roger, 
“because I should feel exactly the same way if you 
people expected me to do what you expect her to 
do.” 

“But she’s a girl,” remonstrated Mr. Emerson. 

“I guess girls nowadays are different from girls 
in your day. Grandfather,” said Roger wisely. 
“We were talking last night at the Hancocks’ about 
fathers one or two generations ago — how savage 
they were compared with fathers to-day.” 

“Savage!” repeated Mr. Emerson under his ■ 
breath. 

“Wasn’t your father more severe to his children 
than you ever were to yours?” persisted Roger. 

“Perhaps he was,” admitted the old gentleman 
slowly. 

“And I’m sure Father is much easier on me than 
his father was on him although Father expects a 


GRANDFATHER ARRANGES TIME 109 

sort of service discipline from me,” continued Roger. 

“May be so,” agreed his hearer. 

“Just in the same way I believe girls are chang- 
ing. They used to be content to think what the 
rest of the family thought on most things. If they 
ever ‘bucked’ at all it was when they fell in love 
with some man the stern parent didn’t approve of, 
and then they were doing something frightful if 
they insisted on having their own way, like Aunt 
Louise Morton.” 

“Surely you don’t think she did right to run 
off!” 

“I’m sorry she did it, but I believe if she had been 
reasoned with instead of ordered, and if Grandfather 
Morton had tried to see the best in the man she 
was in love with instead of booting him out as if 
he were a burglar, it might have come out dif- 
ferently.” 

“Perhaps it might. Personally I believe in every 
one’s exercising his own judgment.” 

“And I tell you the girls nowadays have plenty 
of it,” asserted Roger. “I know lots of girls; there 
are twenty of them in my class at the high school 
and I don’t see but they’re just as sensible as we 
boys and most of them are a heap smarter in their 
lessons.” 

“Helen seems to think as you do, at any rate.” 

“I’m going to stand up for Helen,” declared 
Roger. “I’ll be out of college a couple of years 
before she is and if she wants to study anything 
special or do anything special I’ll surely help her to 


no ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“Your father’s not likely to object to anything 
that she will want to do.” 

“Probably not, only,” returned Roger hesitating, 
“perhaps dear old Dad will need a little education 
himself after being in Mexico and sichlike foreign 
parts for so long.” 

The path which they were following ran along 
the top of a bank that rose abruptly from the water. 
On the other side of the roadway were pretty cot- 
tages rather larger than most of those at Chau- 
tauqua. 

“In this house we’re passing,” said Roger, “there 
lives the grandest sight in Chautauqua. I see 
him almost every time I go by. Look, there he is 
now.” 

He was a bull dog of enormous head and fiercest 
visage, his nose pushed back, his teeth protruding, 
his legs bowed. Belying his war-like aspect he was 
harnessed to a child’s express wagon which was 
loaded with milk cans and baskets. 

“Isn’t that a great old outfit!” exclaimed Roger. 
“He goes to market every morning as solemn as a 
judge. His name is Cupid.” 

“Ha, ha 1 Cupid I” laughed Mr. Emerson. 

The dog’s master held a leash fastened to his 
harness and the strong creature tugged him along 
so fast that he almost had to run to keep up. 

“You see ‘everybody works’ at Chautauqua, even 
the dogs.” 

“And I must say they all seem to like it, even 
Cupid,” added Mr. Emerson. 

Turning away from the lake they walked up the 


GRANDFATHER ARRANGES TIME in 


hill to a grove behind which rose the walls of a hall 
and of several school buildings. 

“Over to the right is the Hall of Pedagogy where 
your affectionate grandson wields the broom and 
smears the dustrag, and the building beyond is the 
College. They aren’t especially handsome either in- 
side or out but they are as busy as beehives. Listen 
to that hum? I tell you they just naturally hustle 
for culture up at this end of the grounds 1” 

“What’s this we’re coming out on?” 

“The Arts and Crafts Studios. Not bad, are 
they? Sort of California Mission effect with those 
low white pillars. This place beats the others in the 
busy bee business. They hum in the mornings but 
the Arts and Crafts people are at it all day long. 
Come along and look in ; they keep the windows open 
on purpose.” 

Nothing loath, Mr. Emerson went up the ascend- 
ing path and on to the brick walk behind the pillars. 
First they peered into a room devoted to the making 
of lace, but neither of them felt drawn to this es- 
sentially feminine occupation. Then they passed 
drawing and painting studios where teachers of draw- 
ing and painting were taught how to teach better. 
In a hall in the centre they found a blackboard draw- 
ing that was as well done as many a painting, but 
Mr. Emerson’s interest began really to grow when 
they came to the next departments. Here they 
found looms, some of them old-fashioned and some 
of them new, but all worked by hand and foot power. 
Several young women and two men were threading 
them or weaving new patterns. It looked difficult 


1 12 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


yet fascinating. Beyond there was a detachment 
learning how to put rush bottoms into chairs, twist- 
ing wet cat-tail leaves and wrapping them about the 
edges of frames. 

“Look, they’re just like the chairs in your dining- 
room,” whispered Roger. “I’ve half a mind to 
learn how to do it so that I can mend them for 
Grandmother.” 

A near-by squad was making baskets, using a 
variety of materials. In another room the leather 
workers were stretching and cutting and wetting and 
dyeing and tooling bits of leather which were to be 
converted into purses and card cases and mats, and 
at another table the bookbinders were exercising the 
most scrupulous care in the use of their tools upon 
the delicate designs which they had transferred to 
their valuable material. 

Around the bend in the w’all were the noisy crafts, 
put by themselves so that they might not interfere 
with the comfort of the quieter toilers. Here the 
metal workers pounded their sheets of brass and 
copper, building up handsome patterns upon future 
trays and waste baskets and lanterns. Here, too, 
the jewelry makers ran their little furnaces and 
thumped and welded until silver cups and chains 
grew under their fingers and settings of unique de- 
sign held semi-precious stones of alluring colors. 

Every student in the whole place seemed alive with 
eagerness to do his work well and swiftly; they bent 
over it, smiling, the teachers were calm and helpful; 
gayety and happiness were in the air. 

“I’d really like to spend my mornings up here,” 


GRANDFATHER ARRANGES TIME 113 

murmured Mr. Emerson, “if I only knew what I 
could do.” 

“We didn’t see the wood-carving room; perhaps 
you’d like that.” 

They turned into a door they had passed. A man 
of Grandfather’s age was drawing his design on a 
board which was destined to become a book rack. 
Another man was chipping out his background, mak- 
ing the flowers of his pattern stand forth in bold re- 
lief. A young woman had a fireboard nearly fin- 
ished. 

“I believe I will come up here,” exclaimed Mr. 
Emerson. 

And so it happened that Grandfather’s mornings 
were taken up as much as those of the rest of the 
family, and it was not long before he was so in- 
terested in his work and so eager to get on with his 
appointed tasks that he spent not only the mornings 
but almost all day drawing and carving and oiling 
in the midst of sweet-smelling shavings. 

On the way back they stopped for a minute to see 
Roger’s cell in the Hall of Pedagogy, and the boy 
showed his grandfather with pride his neat array 
of brooms and rags. As they passed through Hig- 
gins Grove and out on to the green in front of the 
Post Office a great clattering attracted their atten- 
tion. Men ran, boys shouted, and over and above 
all rose a fierce and persistent barking. 

“It’s Cupid I As sure as you’re born, it’s Cupid!” 
cried Roger. 

Sure enough it was Cupid. He had been trotting 
gently down one of the side streets, his wagon laden 


1 14 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

with full milk cans and with sundry bundles. A 
dog passing across the square at the end of the 
street attracted his attention, and he started off at 
full gallop. The cans rolled out of the cart and 
spurted their milky contents on the ground. A bag 
of eggs smashed disastrously as it struck the pave- 
ment. Tins — of corned beef, lentils, sardines — 
bounced on the floor of the wagon until they jounced 
over the side into the road. On, on ran Cupid, his 
harness holding strongly and the front wheels bang- 
ing his hind paws at every jump. The uproar that 
he created drew the attention of the dog which had 
caused all the commotion by his mere presence on the 
plaza. Casting a startled glance at Cupid, he 
clapped his tail between his legs and fled — fled with 
great bounds, his ears flapping in a breeze of his 
own creation. Unencumbered as he was he had the 
advantage of Cupid, who was unable to rid himself 
of the equipment that marked him as man’s slave. 
Seeing his quarry disappear in the distance the bull 
dog came to a standstill just as Roger seized the 
strap that dangled from his harness. 

“Yours, I believe,” he laughed as he handed the 
leash to the young man who came running up. 

“Mine. Thank you. My name is Watkins and 
I’d be glad to know you better. I’ve noticed you 
passing the house every day.” 

“Thank you. My name is Morton,” and the two 
young fellows shook hands over Cupid’s head, while 
he sat down between the shafts and let slip a careless 
tongue from out his heated mouth. 


CHAPTER X 


A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY 

O N the last Sunday in July the sun rose on a 
Chautauqua made serious by the portentous 
event of war actually declared in Europe. The 
Mortons felt a vital interest in it. With their 
father and uncle in the Navy and Army war in 
theory was a thing not new to them. Both Lieu- 
tenant and Captain Morton had served in the Span- 
ish- American War, but Roger was a baby at the time 
and the other children had been born later. The 
nearest approach to active service that th^ children 
had actually known about was the present situation 
in Vera Cruz. They had been thrilled when Lieu- 
tenant Morton had been ordered there in the spring 
and Captain Morton had followed later with Gen- 
eral Funston’s army of occupation. 

But the United States troops were not in Mexico 
to make war but to prevent it, while the impending 
trouble in Europe was so filled with possibilities that 
it promised already to be the greatest struggle that 
the world ever had known. 

The horror of it was increased by the fact that for 
a week all Chautauqua had been giving itself over 
to the peaceful joys of music. For six days Victor 
Herbert’s Orchestra had provided a feast of melody 
and harmony and rhythm and everybody on the 
grounds had participated, either as auditor or as per- 


1 1 6 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


former, in some of the vocal numbers. Mrs. Mor- 
ton and Mr. Emerson and Roger had sung in the 
choir and Dorothy had raised her sweet pipe in the 
Children’s Choir. And at the end of the week had 
come this crashing discord of war. 

Yet the routine of a Chautauqua Sunday went on 
unbroken. The elders went at nine o’clock to the 
Bible Study class in the Amphitheatre, and at half 
past nine the younger members of the family dis- 
persed to the various places where the divisions of 
the graded Sunday School met. Roger and Helen 
found the high school boys and girls in the Hall of 
Christ; the Ethels met the children of the seventh 
grade at the model of Palestine by the lakeside, and 
Dicky went to the kindergarten just as he had done 
on weekday mornings, though what he did after he 
entered the building was far different. 

At ten o’clock Sunday School was over and the 
older children and the grown-ups scattered to the 
devotional services at the various denominational 
houses which Helen and the Ethels had noticed on 
their first day’s walk. At eleven all Chautauqua 
gathered in the Amphitheatre in a union service that 
recognized no one creed but laid stress on the beauty 
and harmony common to all beliefs. 

The coming week was that of the special celebra- 
tion of the founding of Chautauqua Institution forty 
years before, so it was fitting that Bishop Vincent 
should preach from the platform which owed its ex- 
istence to the God-given idea of service which he 
had brought into being. The ideal church and the 
ideal Christian were his themes. 


A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY 


117 


“Personality is always enlarged and ennobled by 
having to do with and becoming responsible for some 
great institution,” he said and even the children un- 
derstood that the Church suggests a pattern for good 
thoughts and for service to others which uplifts the 
people who try to shape their own lives by it. 

“Isn’t he a beautiful old man,” whispered Ethel 
Blue to Ethel Brown. “Do you suppose we’ll ever 
have a chance to speak to him?” 

It seemed to Ethel Brown almost an impossibility; 
yet it happened that very afternoon. 

At three o’clock the Junior Congregation met in 
the Amphitheatre and the Ethels went, although they 
had sat through the morning service. It was a glad 
sight — several hundred girls and boys smiling 
happily and singing joyously and often grown people 
sat in the upper seats of the auditorium where they 
would not intrude upon the gathering below but 
would be able to see and hear the fresh young faces 
and voices. 

It happened that Bishop Vincent, passing by with 
Miss Kimball, stopped for a few minutes at the head 
of one of the aisles to listen to the last hymn, and 
he was still there when the young people poured out 
upon the upper walk. Miss Kimball recognized the 
Ethels and called them to her. 

“Here are two little acquaintances of mine. 
Bishop,” she said; “I know they want to speak to 
you and shake hands with you.” 

Ethel Brown looked frankly into the benign face 
above her and made a prompt answer to the ques- 
tion, “Is this your first summer at Chautauqua?” 


ii8 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


But Ethel Blue was overcame with the embarrass- 
ment that seemed to be growing upon her lately, and 
hardly raised her eyes. Yet as Miss Kimball turned 
to go on and Ethel Brown walked away beside her 
Ethel Blue found herself saying desperately in a 
small voice, 

“Bishop, would you tell me something? I must 
— I want to know something.” 

“Come and sit down here and tell me what it is,” 
answered the kind and genial tones that could make 
the huge Amphitheatre ring or could comfort a child 
with equal effect. 

Drawing her to a seat a little way down the slop- 
ing aisle the Bishop and the young girl sat down. 

“Now what is it?” he asked softly. 

Again shyness seized Ethel and made her speech- 
less. She looked desperately after Ethel Brown, un- 
conscious that the others were not following. Ethel 
Blue turned cold at her own audacity; but she had 
delayed the Bishop in his afternoon walk and she 
must tell him what was on her mind. 

“Do you think,” she stammered, “do you think 
that a coward can ever become brave?” 

“I do,” answered the Bishop promptly and simply. 
“A coward is afraid for two reasons; first, he doesn’t 
control his imagination, and his imagination plays 
him tricks and makes him think that if such or such 
a thing happens to him he will suffer terribly; and 
secondly, he doesn’t control his will. His will ought 
to stand up to his imagination and say, ‘You may be 
right and you may be wrong, but even if you’re right 
I can bear whatever comes. Pain may come, but I 


A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY 


1 19 

can bear it. Trouble may come, but I can bear it.’ 
Do you understand?” 

Ethel’s face was beginning to light up. 

“You see,” the Bishop went on, “God has given 
everybody the power to bear suffering and trouble. 
You may be perfectly sure that if suffering and 
trouble come to you you will be given strength to 
meet them. And God has given us something else ; 
He has given us the power to avoid much pain and 
suffering.” 

“Oh, how?” 

“One way is always to expect joy instead of pain. 
When you are looking for joy you find joy and when 
you are looking for pain you find pain. I rather think 
that you have been looking for pain recently.” 

Ethel hung her head. 

“I was a coward at the fire at our house, and I’m 
so ashamed it doesn’t seem to me I can ever see my 
father again. He’s a soldier and I know he’d be 
mortified to death.” 

“He might be sorry; I don’t believe he’d be morti- 
fied,” said the Bishop, and somehow the half-agree- 
ment soothed Ethel. “They say that when soldiers 
go into battle for the first time they often are so 
frightened that they are nauseated. I dare say your 
father has seen cases like that among his own men, 
so he would understand that a sudden shock or sur- 
prise may bring about behavior that comes from nerv- 
ousness and not from real fear. I rather think that 
that was what was the matter in your case.” 

Ethel drew a sigh of exquisite relief. 

“Do you remember my two reasons for cowardice ? 


120 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


I should think it was quite possible that in the sudden 
excitement of the fire your imagination worked too 
hard. You saw yourself smothered by the smoke 
or roasted in the flames. Didn’t you?” 

“I didn’t really think it; I felt it,” Ethel nodded. 

“And you didn’t stop to say to yourself: ‘I’m go- 
ing to do all I can to help and I’m going to be care- 
ful, but if anything does happen to me I’ll be able 
to bear it.’ ” 

“No, I didn’t think that; I just thought how it 
would hurt. And Ethel Brown saved Dicky and 
wasn’t afraid at all.” 

“She didn’t let her imagination run away with 
her.” 

“I was so ashamed when she was doing splendid 
things and I couldn’t move.” 

“It was too bad, but you’ll have another chance, 
I’ve no doubt. You know the same Opportunity 
never comes twice but another one takes its place.” 

“I can’t face Father unless it does.” 

“One thing you mustn’t do,” declared the Bishop 
firmly; “you mustn’t think about this all the time. 
That isn’t making your will control your imagina- 
tion; it’s doing just the opposite; it’s letting your im- 
agination run away with you.” 

Ethel looked rebuked. 

“Now I want to tell you one more thing. I told 
you one way to avoid pain and suffering — ^by not 
expecting it. The best way of all is to do every- 
thing that comes into your life just as you think God 
would like to have you do it. If you work with 
God in that way God’s peace comes to you. Have I 


A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY 


I2I 


preached too hard a sermon?” he asked as they rose 
to go. “You think about it and come and ask me 
anything else you want to. Will you ?” 

Ethel Blue nodded. She did not seem to have 
voice enough to trust herself to speak. Then she 
thrust her hand suddenly into the strong, gentle 
hand of the good man who had talked to her so 
kindly, gave it a big squeeze and ran away. 

The Bishop looked after her. 

“It was too hard a test for a nervous child; but 
she’ll have her chance — bless her,” and then he 
slowly walked around the edge of the Amphitheatre 
and rejoined his companion on the other side. Ethel 
Brown had just taken leave of her and was running 
after Ethel Bhie as she dashed down the hill. 

“I hope she won’t catch my little friend,” observed 
the Bishop. “She needs to sit and look at the lake 
for half an hour.” 

The address on the Holy Land given in Palestine 
Park in the afternoon was one of the most interest- 
ing things that Chautauqua had offered to them, 
Helen and Roger thought. Palestine Park, they had 
discovered early in their stay, was a model of Pales- 
tine on a scale of one and three-quarters feet to the 
mile. It lay along the shore of the lake, which 
played the part of the Mediterranean. Hills and 
valleys, mountains and streams, were correctly placed 
and little concrete cities dotted about in the grass 
brought Bible names into relation to each other in a 
way not possible on the ordinary map of the school 
geography. 

“I’d like to study my Sunday School lesson right 


122 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


here on the spot,” Helen had said when she first 
went over the ground and traced the Jordan from its 
rise through the Sea of Galilee into the Dead Sea, 
where, on week days, children sailed their boats and 
fished with pins for non-existent whales. 

Now Helen and Roger stood with the throng that 
gathered and understood as they never had before 
the location of tribes and the movements of armies. 
Most living to them seemed the recital of the life 
of Christ as the speaker traced His movements from 
the “little town of Bethlehem” to Calvary. 

The later activities of this Sunday again divided 
the Morton family. Mrs. Morton and Roger 
nodded to Dorothy at the Organ Interlude at four 
o’clock. Grandfather and Grandmother sat through 
the C.L.S.C. Vesper Service at five in the Hall of 
Philosophy, the westering sun gleaming softly 
through the branches of the oaks in St. Paul’s Grove 
in which the temple stood. After supper came the 
Lakeside Service and Helen and Roger stood to- 
gether in the open and sang heartily from the same 
book and as they gazed out over the water were 
thankful that their father was safe in his vessel even 
though he was far from them and on waters where 
the sun set more glowingly. Mrs. Morton stayed 
at home in the evening to keep watch over Dicky but 
all the rest went to the Song Service, joining in the 
soft hymn that rose in the darkness before the 
lights were turned on, and listening with delight to 
the music of the soloists and the choir. 

It was after they were all gathered again at the 
cottage that there came one of those talks that bind 


A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY 


123 

families together. It was quiet Ethel Blue who be- 
gan it. 

“Bishop Vincent told me to-day that if you didn’t 
think that things — bad things — ^were going to hap- 
pen to you they were less likely to come,” she said. 

“Bishop Vincent told you!” exclaimed Roger. 
“What do you mean?” 

“She had a long talk with him after the Junior 
Service,” explained Ethel Brown. “I walked on 
with Miss Kimball.” 

“What I want to say is this,” continued Ethel 
Blue patiently after Roger’s curiosity had been satis- 
fied; “it seems to me that you’re less likely to be 
afraid that bad things are going to happen to you if 
you keep doing things for other people all the time.” 

“It’s never wise to think about yourself all the 
time,” agreed Mrs. Morton. 

“The Bishop said that if you let your imagination 
run loose it might give you uncomfortable thoughts 
and make you afraid. If you’re working for other 
people and inventing pleasant things to do to make 
them happy your imagination won’t be hurting your- 
self.” 

“Our little Ethel Blue is becoming quite a chatter- 
box,” commented Roger, giving her hair a tweak as 
she sat on the steps beside him. 

“Hush, Roger. I wish you had half as much 
sense,” said Helen smartly. “Anything more, 
Ethel?” 

“Yes. I wish we had a club, just us youngsters, 
a club that would keep us doing things for other peo- 
ple all the time. Don’t you think it would be fun?” 


124 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“H’m, h’m,” began Roger, but a gentle nudge 
from Helen stopped him. 

“I think it would be splendid, Ethel Blue,” she 
said; “I know Mother thinks it’s just what I need for 
my complaint. Mother, dear. I’m not selfish; I’m 
just self-respecting^ and self-respecting people want 
to co-operate just as much as other people. I’d love 
to have this club to try to prove to you that I’m not 
a ‘greedy Jo.’ ” 

“I’m far from thinking you a ‘greedy Jo,’ Helen. 
You’re getting morbid about it, I’m afraid, and I 
believe this club idea of Ethel Blue’s will be an ex- 
cellent thing for you; and for Roger, too,” she went 
on. 

“What’s the matter with me?” inquired Roger a 
trifle gruffly. 

“You’re a very dear boy,” said his mother, running 
her fingers through his hair in a way that he was just 
beginning to like after years of considering it an 
almost unendurable habit, “but sometimes I think 
you’ve forgotten your Scout law, ‘Do a kindness to 
some one every day.’ It’s not that you mean to be 
unkind; you’re just careless.” 

“H’m,” grunted Roger. “There seems to be a 
good reason for every one of us joining this club. 
What’s the matter with Ethel Brown?” 

“I know,” answered Ethel Brown before her. 
mother had time to reply; “Mother’s going to tell 
you that I like to do things for people not to give 
them pleasure, but because it gives me pleasure and 
so I don’t do things the way they like them but the 


A CHAUTAUQUA SUNDAY 


125 

way I like them. And that’s really selfish and not 
unselfish.” 

“Upon my word,” exclaimed Grandfather Emer- 
son, “these children seem to be able to analyze them- 
selves mighty closely! They agree on one thing, 
though — this club of Ethel Blue’s is the cure that 
they all need for their different ailments.” 

“Let’s have it,” cried Roger. “Ethel Blue shall 
be president and we’ll let Dicky be an honorary mem- 
ber and the grown-ups shall be the Advisory Board.” 

“Oh, I couldn’t be president,” said Ethel Blue . 
shrinkingly. 

“It’s your idea. You ought to be,” insisted 
Helen. 

“No, you be president. And let’s ask Margaret 
Hancock to belong, and James. You know we’ll 
probably see a good deal of them next winter now 
that we know them. They’re only forty minutes on 
the trolley from us.” 

“I wish we’d always known them; they’re certainly 
great kids,” pronounced Roger. 

“If we have a club It will be an Inducement to 
them to come over often.” 

“What’ll we call the club?” Ethel Brown always 
liked to have details attended to promptly. 

“Do for Others”; “A Thing a Day”; “Every 
Little Helps,” were titles suggested by one voice 
and another. 

“Why not ‘The United Servers’ if you are going 
to make it a club of service,” asked Mrs. Emerson. 

“Why not ‘The United Service’?” demanded 


126 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


Roger. “With Father in the Navy and Ethel Blue’s 
father in the Army we have the two arms of the 
Service united in the family, and if we call it ‘The 
United Service Club’ it will be a nice little pun for 
ourselves and express the idea of the club all right 
for outsiders.” 

Everybody seemed to like the suggestion. 

“Now, then,” declared Roger, standing below the 
steps and facing the family above him; “it has been 
moved that Helen be president. Do I hear a sec- 
ond?” 

“You do,” cried Ethel Blue. 

“All right. Everybody in favor — ” 

“Aye.” 

“Contrary minded — ” 

Silence. 

“It is a vote, and Miss Helen Morton is unani- 
mously elected president of the United Service Club. 
What’s the next thing to do?” 

“Make Dicky an honorary member,” suggested 
Ethel Blue. 

“Go to bed,” over-ruled Mrs. Morton. “There 
are the chimes.” 

So the president and members and Advisory Board 
of the United Service Club disappeared into the 
house and Dicky was not informed until the next day 
of the honor that had befallen him. 


CHAPTER XI 


THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB IS ORGANIZED 



‘HE Hancocks were notified on Monday morn- 


A ing of their election to membership in the new 
club. They were delighted to join, especially as it 
would mean after they got home a regular meeting 
with the pleasant friends they had had to come many 
miles from home to know. 

“What are we going to do first?’’ they asked Roger 
who took the invitation to them. 

“Helen has called a meeting for this afternoon 
at five o’clock. We’ll decide on something then.” 

“Where’s it going to be?” 

“Up in the ravine just before you get to Higgins 
Hall. Dorothy’s going to make some sandwiches.” 

“Oh, Dorothy’s going to belong.” 

“Sure thing. Our household can’t do without her 
since Grandfather was sick. I asked Mother if 
Mary couldn’t make us some sandwiches, but she 
said Mary was awfully busy to-day, and Dorothy 
said if the club was to help people she’d help Mary 
by making the sandwiches.” 

“Good old Dorothy I She’s begun to be a United 
Server before the club has really got to working.” 

“I don’t see why I can’t come in on the sandwich 
business,” said James. “I’m a dandy ham sheer.” 

“Come over, then. Dorothy’s making them now 
on the back porch.” 


127 


128 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


So it happened that there was almost a meeting 
of the club before the time actually set for it, but 
after all there was not a quorum, according to James, 
while at five o’clock every active member was pres- 
ent, though the members of the Advisory Board were 
detained by other engagements. 

The ravine extended back from the lake toward 
the fence. Through it ran a brook which the dry 
weather had made almost non-existent, but its course 
was marked by an abundant growth of wild flowers, 
including the delicate blue of the forget-me-not. 

“Let’s have the forget-me-not for our flower,” 
suggested Margaret as soon as they were settled on 
the bank under the tall trees. “We mustn’t pick 
any of these, of course, but they won’t be hard to 
find at home, and they’ll be easy to embroider if we 
ever need to make badges or anything of that sort.” 

“Perhaps in the course of a few years we’ll be 
advanced enough to have pins,” said Helen, “and 
forget-me-not pins will be lovely. Even the boys 
can wear them for scarf pins — little ones with just 
one flower.” 

Roger and James approved this suggestion and so 
the matter of an emblem was decided not only with- 
out trouble but before the meeting had been called 
to order. 

“We certainly are a harmonious lot,” observed 
James when some one mentioned this fact. 

“What I want to do,” said Ethel Brown, “is to 
give a vote of thanks to Dorothy and James and 
Ethel Blue for making the sandwiches.” 

“Good idea; they’re bully,” commended Roger. 


THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB 129 

“I move, Helen, that the people just mentioned be 
elected official sandwich makers to the club.” 

“Don’t call the president by her name,” objected 
James. “Don’t you have parliamentary law in your 
school?” 

“No; plenty without it.” 

“We do. We have an assembly every morning 
— current events and things like that and sometimes 
a speaker from New York — and one of the scholars 
presides and we have to do the thing up brown. 
You wouldn’t call Helen ‘Helen’ there, I can tell 
you.” 

“What ought I to say?” 

“ ‘Miss President,’ or ‘Madam President.’ ” 

This was greeted by a howl of joy from Roger. 

“ ‘Madam’ is good!” he howled, wriggling with 
delight. “I do know how to put a motion, though. 
I’ll leave it to Ethel Blue if I didn’t set her idea 
on its legs last night by putting through a unanimous 
vote for Helen for president.” 

“You did, but you don’t seem to be giving the 
president a chance to call the meeting to order 
now.” 

“I apologize, Madam President,” and again 
Roger rolled over in excessive mirth. 

“The meeting will come to order, then,” began 
Helen. “Is that right, James?” 

“O.K. Go ahead.” 

“Madam President,” said Margaret promptly, 
“do you think it’s necessary for us to be so particular 
and follow parliamentary law? I think it will be 
dreadfully stiff and fussy.” 

9 


130 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Oh, let’s do it, Margaret. I want to learn and 
you and James know how, so that’s a service you can 
do for me. And Helen ought to know if she’s go- 
ing to be president,” Roger urged. 

“Here’s where you’re wrong at the jump-off, old 
man. You ought not to speak directly to Margaret. 
You ought to address the chair — that is, Helen.” 

“What are you doing yourself, then, talking 
straight to me?” 

“Bull’s-eye. Margaret was all right, though. 
Madam President. She addressed the chair. 
What does the chair think about Margaret’s ques- 
tion?” 

“I think — the chair thinks — ” began Helen, 
warned by James’s amused glance, “that Margaret 
is right. It won’t do us any harm to obey a few 
parliamentary rules, but if we are too particular 
it’ll be horrid.” 

“It’s a mighty good chance to learn,” growled 
Roger* “I want to make old James useful.” 

“If you talk that queer way I’ll never open my 
mouth,” declared Ethel Blue in a tone of lament. 

“Then I move you. Madam President, that we 
don’t do it,” said James, “because this club is Ethel 
Blue’s idea and it would be a shame if she couldn’t 
have a say-so in her own club.” 

“I’m willing to compromise, Helen — Madam 
President,” went on Ethel Blue, giggling; “I say let 
Roger be parliamentary if he wants to, and the rest 
of us will be parliamentary or unparliamentary just 
as we feel like it.” 

Applause greeted this suggestion, largely from 


THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB 13 1 

Dicky, who was glad of the opportunity to make 
some noise. 

“There’s a motion before the house, Madam 
President,” reminded James. 

“Dear me, so there is. What do I do now?” 

“Say, ‘Is it seconded?’ ” whispered James. 

“Is it seconded?” 

“I second it,” came from Margaret. 

“It is moved and seconded by the Hancocks that 
we do not follow parliamentary rules in the United 
Service Club.” 

Helen had felt herself getting on swimmingly but 
at this point she seemed to have come to a wall. 

“Are you ready for the question?” prompted 
James in an undertone. 

“Are you ready for the question?” repeated Helen 
aloud. 

“Let her rip,” advised Roger. 

“All in favor say ‘Aye.’ ” 

Margaret and James said “Aye.” 

“Contrary minded — ” 

“No,” roared Roger. 

“No,” followed Ethel Blue meekly. 

“No,” came Ethel Brown in uncertain negative. 

Helen didn’t know just how to handle this situa- 
tion. 

“Three to two,” she counted. “They don’t 
agree,” and she turned helplessly toward James. 

“Right you are,” he acknowledged. “Why don’t 
you ask for Ethel Blue’s motion?” 

“But I didn’t make a motion,” screamed Ethel 
Blue, deeply agitated. 


132 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Same thing; you said you were willing to com- 
promise and let Roger be parliamentary if he wanted 
to and the rest of us do as we liked.” 

“I think that’s a good way.” 

“Do you make that motion?” asked Helen, 
prompted by James. 

“Yes, I make that motion,” repeated Ethel Blue. 

“Hurrah for the lady who said she’d never talk 
‘that queer way,’ ” cheered Roger. 

“It isn’t so bad when you know how,” admitted 
Ethel Blue. 

“Is that motion seconded?” Helen had not for- 
gotten her first lesson. 

“I second it.” It was Roger who spoke. 

“Question,” called Margaret. 

“It is moved and seconded that we all do as we 
like except Roger and that he talk parliamentary 
fashion all the time.” 

Thus the president stated the motion. 

“Oh, say,” objected Roger. “I call that unfair 
discrimination.” 

“Not at all,” retorted the president. “You were 
the one who wanted to learn so it’s only fair that you 
should have the chance.” 

“I can’t do it alone.” 

“Perhaps some of us will be moved to do it, too, 
once in a while. You see the president ought to 
know how. These Hancock experts here said so.” 

“You haven’t asked for the ‘Ayes’ and ‘Nos’ yet,” 
reminded Margaret, and this time Helen sent it 
through without a hesitation. 

“The next thing for us to decide,” continued the 


THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB 133 

president when Ethel Blue’s motion had passed with- 
out a dissenting voice, “is what we are going to do. 
Of course we can’t undertake any really big things 
here at Chautauqua where we have all our time pretty 
well filled and where we are studying things that we 
ought not to slight because they may help us out 
later In our plans for service. So I think what we 
must look out for Is little things that we can do to 
be helpful. Does anybody know of any?” 

“I know of one,” offered James promptly. “To- 
morrow Is Old First Night. That’s the only time in 
all the summer when there is a collection taken on 
the grounds. All the money they get on Old First 
Night Is used for the benefit of the general public. 
The Miller Tower, for Instance, was an Old First 
Night Gift, and part of the Arts and Crafts Studios 
was paid for by another one, and the Sherwood 
Music Studio.” 

“Great scheme,” remarked Roger. “You take 
your contribution out of one pocket and put It Into 
the other, so to speak. Where do we come In?” 

“They want boys to collect the money from the 
people In the Amphitheatre. That’s something you 
and I can do.” 

“Is there anything that girls do on Old First 
Night?” 

Ethel Brown turned to Margaret as authority be- 
cause the Hancocks had been at Chautauqua many 
summers. 

“There never has been anything particular for 
them to do but I don’t know why we couldn’t offer 
to trim the stage. I believe they’d like to have us.” 


134 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“How shall we find out?” 

“I’ll telephone to the Director to-night, and if 
he says ‘Yes,’ then we can go outside the gate to- 
morrow afternoon and pick wild flowers and trim the 
stage just before supper.” 

“You boys will have to go too,” said Helen; 
“we’ll need you to bring back the flowers. 

“Right-0,” agreed James. “Anybody any more 
ideas?” 

“We’ll have to keep our eyes open as things come 
along,” said Ethel Blue. “There ought to be some- 
thing every day. There’s Recognition Day, any 
way.” 

“We’re all too big for Flower Girls; they have 
to be not over ten; but Mother went to the 1914 
Class meeting this afternoon and one of the members 
of the class proposed that they should have boys as 
well as girls — a boys’ guard of honor — so there’s 
a job for our honorary member, Mr. Richard Mor- 
ton.” 

“If they have a lot of kids they’ll want some big 
fellows to keep them straight and make them march 
right,” guessed James; “that’s where you and I come 
in, Roger, thanks to your mother and grandfather 
and my father being in the class.” 

“How about us girls?” 

“The graduating class can use all the flowers they 
can lay their hands on, so we can bring them all we 
can carry and I know they’ll be glad to have them,” 
said Margaret. 

“Can’t we help them decorate?” 

“They always do all the decorating themselves. 


THE UNITED SERVICE CLUB 135 

but the evening before Recognition Day there’s going 
to be a sale of ice cream for the benefit of the fund 
the C.L.S.C. people are raising to build a veranda on 
Alumni Hall and we can help a lot there.” 

“Where’s that going to be?” 

“There’ll be hundreds of lanterns strung between 
the two halls, the band will play, and they’ll have 
tables in the Hall of Philosophy.” 

“And we’ll wait on the tables.” 

“We’ll carry ice cream and sell cake and tell peo- 
ple how awfully good a chocolate cake that hasn’t 
been cut yet looks so they’ll want a piece of that to 
take home to one of the children who couldn’t come.” 

“Foxy Margaret!” 

“It’ll be true.” 

“I suspect it will. My mouth waters now.” 

“You’ll excuse my turning the subject. Madam 
President,” said James excitedly, “but there are some 
of the j oiliest little squirrels up over our heads. I’ve 
been watching them ever since we came and I be- 
lieve I’ve learned a thing or two about them.” 

“What!”^ 

They all threw themselves on their backs and 
stared up into the trees. 

“They have regular paths that they follow in go- 
ing from tree to tree. Did you see that fellow 
jump ? He went out on the tip of that long twig and 
leaped from there. He just could grab the branch 
that sticks out from that oak. I believe that must 
be the only place where it is near enough for them 
to make the leap, for I’ve seen at least twenty jump 
from that same twig since I noticed them first.” 


136 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Twenty! How do you know It wasn’t one leap- 
ing twenty times to show off to us?” 

“It was more than one, anyway, for there was a 
chap with a grand, bushy tail and another one with 
hardly any tail at all.” 

“Cats,” hissed Ethel Brown tragically. 

“Very likely, since shooting Isn’t allowed here. 
Last summer I saw a cat catch a chipmunk right 
over there by that red cottage.” 

“Did she kill him?” 

“Not much! Mr. Chip gave himself a twist and 
scampered back Into his hole in the bank. I tell you 
the stripes on his back looked like one continuous 
strip of ribbon he went so fast!” 

“Poor little fellow. Any more sandwiches left?” 
queried Roger. “No? Too bad. Let’s adjourn, 
then. Madam President, I move we adjourn.” 

“To meet when?” 

“When the president calls us,” said Ethel Blue. 

“And we’ll all have our eyes and ears open so as 
to give her information so she’ll have something to 
call us for.” 

Picking up the honorary member and setting him 
on his shoulder Roger led the procession back to 
the lake front, and so ended the first meeting of the 
United Service Club which was to fill so large a part 
In the lives of all its members for several years to 
come. 


CHAPTER XII 


OLD FIRST NIGHT 

F or several days after the fire Dicky had been 
far from well and Mrs. Morton had taken him 
out of the kindergarten. As he recovered his bal- 
ance, however, It became evident that he would be 
very lonely in the mornings when all the rest of the 
family were away at their different occupations If he, 
too, did not have some regular task. He was so 
much stronger and taller than the other children at 
the kindergarten that Roger, who was proud of his 
manliness, urged his mother to let him join the 
Boys’ Club. 

“Will they take boys as young as he Is?” 

“It depends entirely on how young they behave, 
and Dicky’s no baby.” 

“Then if you think they’ll accept him suppose you 
take him to the Club and enroll him.” 

So Dicky marched bravely in among the hundreds 
of boys who help to make lively the southern part 
of the Assembly Grounds, and was duly registered as 
a member of the Boys’ Club. If his rompers seemed 
to give him a too youthful air at one end the blue 
sweater adorned with the Boys’ Club monogram 
which he Insisted on donning at once, evened up his 
status. For a day or two Roger had happened in 
at the Club to see whether the little chap was hold- 
137 


138 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

ing his own and he had been so satisfied with what he 
saw that he no longer felt it necessary to exercise a 
daily watchfulness. Dicky came and went all over 
the grounds now, and often enlightened his elders 
about some locality of which they were not certain. 

When the sun rises on the day that is to end with 
the Old First Night celebration there is always a sup- 
pressed excitement in Chautauqua. The young men 
of the Daily are listening to the Managing Editor’s 
assignment of their extra duties in reporting the even- 
ing festivities; the boys who are to collect the money 
from the audience in the Amphitheatre and the men 
to whom they are to deliver it are receiving from the 
Usher-in-Chief their instructions as to their respec- 
tive positions and duties; messengers rush their 
bicycles over the ground delivering notes of invita- 
tion to the people who are to sit on the plat- 
form. 

In the homes the heads of the families are decid- 
ing how much they can afford to give to the Old 
First Night Fund and the other members down to 
the small children are examining their pocket books 
and shaking the pennies out of their banks so that 
every one may have a share, no matter how small, in 
the gift of Chautauquans to Chautauqua. 

The Morton-Emerson household had had its share 
of the morning excitement and Mrs. Morton and her 
father were climbing up the hill, she to go to the 
Women’s Club and he to occupy his usual stool at 
the Arts and Crafts Studios. At almost every step 
they nodded pleasantly to acquaintances, for they 
had many friends, some made before the fire, and 


OLD FIRST NIGHT 


139 


others drawn to them by the spirit of helpfulness 
that makes Chautauquans run to the rescue of dis- 
tress wherever they find it. 

As they reached the hilltop and crossed the street 
to enter the Post Office for the morning mail their 
ears were saluted by the customary morning sounds. 
The ice cream booth and the bakery in the pergola 
were being replenished from heavy kegs and boxes 
which were in process of being unloaded from carts 
on to the ground before their destinations. Crowds 
of people on their way to classes and clubs were open- 
ing letters and calling out home news to other mem- 
bers of their families or slitting the wrappers from 
newspapers and shaking out the front page to come 
at the war news quickly. 

Shrill cries of ^^Chautauquan Daily** rose on every 
side as boy venders of the local paper pressed among 
the people, for they did their best business in the early 
hours. People who would not take the time to stop 
and examine the program for the day posted in the 
tree boxes would read it in the paper as they hurried 
on to ensure punctuality at their classrooms. 

“It really seems as if there was an extra hum in 
the air,” laughed Mrs. Morton. 

“I think there is,” returned her father drily. His 
eyes were fastened on a figure approaching them. 

Chant auquan Daily** came from a small but 
earnest throat. ^^Chautauquan Daily; program for 
to-day and to-morrow.” 

“Upon my word!” ejaculated Mrs. Morton. 

“Lecture by Mithter Griggth; addreth by Doctor 
Hurlbut,” piped the piercing voice. 


140 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Upon my word,” gasped Mrs. Morton once 
more; “it’s Dicky!” 

It was. It was a radiant Dicky. His romper 
trousers were spread wide on each side and he 
strutted consumedly. His breast heaved proudly be- 
neath the Boys’ Club monogram on his sweater. The 
elastic under his chin did not hold his hat straight 
upon his bobbed hair and the brim was canted over 
one ear and gave him a rakish expression. He was 
the picture of a perfectly happy boy and he was doing 
a bigger business than any other newsboy in front 
of the Post Office. People crowded around him and 
every time he shouted “Lecture by Mithter Griggth; 
addreth by Doctor Hurlbut,” they went into peals of 
laughter. 

“What shall I do, Father?” asked Mrs. Morton 
breathlessly. 

“You wouldn’t have the heart to stop him, would 
you?” Mr. Emerson asked in return. 

Dicky’s mother gazed raptly at him for a whole 
minute. 

“No,” she said at last, “I haven’t the heart to 
stop him.” 

“It’s in the air, as I said the other evening when 
Helen was making her plea,” said Mr. Emerson. 

“Do you suppose it’s money Dicky wants?” 

“Money and excitement. Dicky will do a kind- 
ness to a friend and expect no pay for it just as you 
did when you were young, but I’ve no doubt that 
Dicky also likes the feeling of some extra coppers 
in his pockets. I suppose there are pockets in those 
extraordinary garments he wears?” 


OLD FIRST NIGHT 


141 

“Yes,” returned Mrs. Morton mechanically. 
“What is behind it all?” she asked again; “are we 
Americans getting so thoroughly commercialized that 
even the babies want to go out in the street and earn 
money?” 

“I believe it’s a love of adventure as much as a 
love of money. At any rate we’ve seen it developed 
in three members of your own family and surely our 
family traditions and the traditions of the Army and 
Navy are all against commercialism. I believe it is 
one of the modern phenomena that we must bow be- 
fore. Opposing it will bring unhappiness and 
trouble. The thing to do is to encourage such a 
spirit as your children are showing in this new club 
of theirs. Let them be commercial if they will but 
make them understand that their business interests 
must not make them less human, less friendly, less 
willing to serve any one who needs their service.” 

“It is very perplexing,” sighed Mrs. Morton, but 
she walked away without speaking to Dicky, leaving 
him the centre of a throng lost in admiration of his 
cry, “Lecture by Mithter Griggth; addreth by Doc- 
tor Hurlbut.” 

Dicky’s escapade was not the only one entered into 
by the Mortons on this memorable day. Right after 
dinner the whole club except Dicky who, it was de- 
cided, was not up to the long walk, went outside the 
grounds to pick wild flowers for the decoration of the 
platform of the Amphitheatre. The Director had 
given his consent and had expressed his pleasure, so 
the Hancocks and the Mortons and Dorothy set out 
in high spirits. 


142 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

It was late in the afternoon when they returned 
laden with their spoils. Early goldenrod and asters 
filled their arms, feathery green boughs waved over 
their heads, and long vines of clematis trailed behind 
them. 

The Ethels were not such good walkers as the 
others. Even Dorothy kept up with the big boys 
better than the two younger Mortons, so they found 
themselves quite alone some distance before they 
reached the trolley gate. 

“Um,” sighed Ethel Brown; “I’m tired. I’d like 
to stop right here.” 

“Peg along,” urged Ethel Blue. 

“If only it wasn’t against the rule we might crawl 
under the fence just ahead there where the hole is.” 

Ethel Blue looked at the place with longing eyes. 
Dogs had burrowed their way under the pickets and 
had worn out a hole that seemed big enough for 
thin people to get through. She turned to Ethel 
Brown. 

“It would be wrong to do it,” she said, “but it 
would save us a long distance, because there’s a short 
cut right to the Amphitheatre just over there inside.” 

Ethel Blue was open to temptation to do anything 
that required daring, for she was trying hard to gain 
courage by following the Bishop’s advice and by at- 
tempting little adventures about which she felt timid. 

“I’m almost dead,” groaned Ethel Brown plain- 
tively. “Do you think they could possibly catch 
us? You know they tell a story of a fat woman who 
found a place like this and squeezed her way in and 


OLD FIRST NIGHT 


143 

when she was all in a fence guard appeared and 
made her squeeze herself out again.” 

“She was trying to cheat the Institution out of her 
entrance money. We aren’t doing that; we’ve got 
our gate tickets.” 

Somehow that made the matter seem better, 
though in their inmost hearts the girls knew that 
they were not doing what was right. Yet with a 
look around and a gasp of excitement they pushed 
their flowers through ahead of them and then 
struggled through themselves. 

“There isn’t anybody in sight,” exclaimed Ethel 
Brown in the low voice of guilt, scanning the grounds 
as she helped Ethel Blue get on her feet. 

“We’ve done it, anyway,” answered Ethel Blue, 
and she even felt a touch of pride in the adventure, 
for at least she had not been frightened. 

They took their contribution to the Amphitheatre 
and helped the others, who had been at work for 
some time, to arrange the flowers around the edge 
of the platform. The result was beautiful and the 
group was delighted when a hearty voice said sud- 
denly, “Is this the United Service Club ? I want to 
thank you for doing this for us. We’ve never 
looked so fine as this before on Old First Night.” 

“Thank you, thank you,” they chorused in re- 
turn as the Director left them. 

It was a happy though weary group that chat- 
tered its way along the lake front and across Miller 
Park. No sooner had they reached the cottage 
than the Ethels told their story to Mrs. Morton with 


144 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

much laughter. For some reason she did not take 
the joke just as they would have liked to have 
her. 

“You know it is against the rule? Everybody is 
expected to go out and enter through the gates.” 

“Oh, we know that. But what harm did it do? 
We weren’t cheating the Institution; we had our 
tickets.” 

“Suppose everybody did what you did. Can you 
see any objection?” 

“It would look mighty funny,” giggled Ethel 
Blue. 

“It would be rather confusing, I suppose,” ad- 
mitted Ethel Brown; “they wouldn’t be able to tell 
who had tickets and who hadn’t.” 

“You don’t really mind, do you. Aunt Marion?” 

“I confess I shall have to make up a new opinion 
about my honest little girls,” she replied slowly. 
“Have you thought what you are going to do about 
the punch on your tickets?” 

This hint was alarming. 

“What about the punch?” 

“Everybody’s ticket is punched on an odd num- 
ber when you come in and on an even one when 
you go out. Your last punch was on an even num- 
ber, when you went out this afternoon. What are 
you going to do when you want to go out again?” 

Ethel Brown stared at Ethel Blue in dismay, and 
Ethel Blue’s eyes began to fill with tears. 

“It will be perfectly clear to the gateman that 
you came in in some improper way.” 

Mrs. Morton went into the dining-room to take 


OLD FIRST NIGHT 


145 


a last look at the table and the Ethels went up- 
stairs to dress. Somehow the fun of their adven- 
ture had faded away. In its place was a growing 
discomfort that was increasingly painful. They did 
not discuss their trouble and they put on clean 
dresses without their usual pleasure in their fresh- 
ness and prettiness. Mrs. Morton did not allude 
to the subject again, and that gave the children ad- 
ditional feelings of uneasiness, for they felt that 
she was leaving the decision as to their future action 
entirely to them. 

Roger, who was to pass a basket at the Amphi- 
theatre, hurried through his supper and whooped 
to James as he passed the Hancocks’ house. The 
other members of the two families went later and 
more slowly, enjoying as they walked along the lake 
front the familiar tunes that the chimes were ringing 
out. As they climbed the hill they were sorry that 
they had not made an earlier start, for people were 
gathering in flocks and the organ was already play- 
ing. Once more they had to say, “This is the larg- 
est audience yet.” This time it was remarkable for 
its number of old people, for it seemed as if every- 
body who ever had been at Chautauqua made a 
point of returning to join in the celebration of the 
Fortieth Anniversary. 

The service arranged by Bishop Vincent for the 
opening night was used for the forty-first time, and 
tears ran down the cheeks of old men and women 
who recalled the passing of the intervening years 
and gave their memento of esteem to the Chautau- 
quans of bygone days when they joined the rest of 
10 


146 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

the huge audience in lifting their handkerchiefs in 
a drooping salute to the dead. 

The Chancellor introduced the President, and he, 
after a few words of historical reminiscence, intro- 
duced the speakers of the evening, a dozen of them, 
who spoke briefly and told some good stories. Be- 
tween their speeches were sandwiched the events 
that make Old First Night different from any other 
night in the Amphitheatre. The members of the 
family of Mr. Miller, one of the founders of the 
Institution, were honored by a waving Chautauqua 
salute, invented long ago for a deaf speaker and 
continued because of its beauty. Mrs. Thomas 
Edison, a daughter of Mr. Miller, thanked the 
audience for its tribute to her father and called for 
a similar salute to the Vincent family. 

“There’s Miss Kimball standing with two other 
ladies to be saluted,” cried Ethel Brown. 

“And there’s the president of the Women’s Club 
with her,” said Mrs. Morton. 

Old songs were sung and “Dixie” brought a large 
Southern contingent to its feet. Mr. Vincent joked 
and cajoled his hearers while messengers and ushers 
gathered several thousand dollars, the Old First 
Night gift. 

Best fun of all were the roll calls. Between sixty 
and seventy were present who had been a part of 
the original Old First Night. Thirty-two persons 
rose as having been at Chautauqua for forty-one 
summers and a Chautauqua salute sent them hap- 
pily to their seats, for a Chautauqua salute is an 
honor not achieved every day. “I’ve been waiting 


OLD FIRST NIGHT 


147 


twenty-five years for this,” said a professor in one 
of the Summer Schools who received the distinc- 
tion as a “Good-bye” before a trip to Europe. 

By way of gaining an idea of the breadth of 
Chautauqua’s call, dwellers in different parts of the 
world and of the United States were called to their 
feet. A small group rose as from New England; 
a very large group from New York and Pennsyl- 
vania. The South stood solid in large parties all 
over the auditorium, and the West had sent many 
representatives. The showing from Canada and 
parts of the world outside of our own country was 
by no means small. 

“Who are the people on the platform beside the 
speakers?” Helen asked Mrs. Hancock who sat next 
her. 

“The officers and trustees of the Institution, al- 
most all of the ‘old originals’ and some people of 
distinction who happen to be on the grounds.” 

Then they left the Amphitheatre to go to the 
lake front for the fireworks and found themselves 
passing through a forest of brilliant lanterns swing- 
ing from the trees and casting their soft light on 
the paths and grass. Thousands of happy people, 
some wet-eyed with memories, some wide-eyed with 
wonder, walked beneath them, talking of days gone 
by and days to come. 

So large was the Morton-Emerson-Hancock 
group that Mrs. Morton did not notice until she 
was almost at her own door that the Ethels were 
not near her. 

“They were in the Amphitheatre,” she said. 


148 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“I saw them coming out,” cried Margaret. 

“We’ll wait a few minutes and then if they don’t 
come Roger must look for them,” said Mrs. Morton 
anxiously. 

But before she had had many minutes of anxiety 
the two girls came running up to the porch. They 
were laughing happily now, and in quite a different 
mood from that in which they had left the house 
earlier in the evening. 

“What in the world have you been doing, chil- 
dren?” asked Grandmother Emerson. “Your 
dresses are covered with dirt.” 

“Mother knows.” 

“Aunt Marion can guess.” 

“I’m sure I don’t and I can’t. What have you 
been up to?” 

“It’s all right about our ticket,” nodded Ethel 
Brown gleefully. 

“How can that be?” 

“We were so worried about the punching coming 
out wrong that as soon as we left the Amphitheatre 
we ran up to that hole in the fence and crawled 
out again, and then we ran down the road as fast 
as we could to the trolley gate and came in properly, 
so now our tickets punch all right.” 

“But there’s still a hurt in my girls’ consciences, 
isn’t there?” asked Mrs. Morton, drawing them to 
her and kissing them “Good-night.” 

“You see,” she went on, “when you broke a law 
of the Institution you were not law-abiding citizens.” 

“But we weren’t wicked, because we had our 
tickets — we weren’t cheating.” 


OLD FIRST NIGHT 


149 


“That’s true, but laws are made to help com- 
munities to run smoothly. If you do not obey them 
you are not co-operating with the people who are 
working for the happiness of the whole body.” 

“ ‘Co-operation’ — that’s just team-work,” mused 
Roger. 

“Right,” confirmed Mr. Emerson. “Co-opera- 
tion is what makes life easy to live, it’s what pro- 
duces results, it’s what makes the world better. Be 
a co-operator.” 

“Me a co-op,” agreed Roger cheerfully, while 
the Ethels sat silently on the steps and thought about 
it. 


CHAPTER XIII 


FLYING 


EWS, news, news,” shouted Roger as he 



turned a cartwheel before the porch on 
which his mother was sitting. It was the day after 
Old First Night. 

“What is it? Vera Cruz — ?” asked Mrs. Mor- 
ton and Ethel Blue, whose thoughts always were 
with the Navy and Army. 

“Nothing to do with Vera Cruz,” Roger reas- 
sured them. “This event is much nearer home. 
It isn’t any farther away from home than from 
here to the steamboat dock.” 

“What is it, Roger?” demanded Helen. “You’re 
so tantalizing!” 

“Oh, for the white wings, sailing, sailing,” sang 
Roger, advancing gracefully with outstretched arms 
and retreating abruptly as Dicky made a rush at 
him, head down like a young goat. 

“Are you going to sail in the Humbug again?” 

“Has she won another race?” 

“Come, birdie, birdie, perch on this twig,” cooed 
Ethel Brown with a gesture toward the piazza rail, 
“and tell us all about it.” 

Roger responded to this appeal, especially as it 
was re-enforced by the bait of a fresh cooky, held 
out invitingly. 

“Ladies,” he began impressively, as he roosted 


FLYING 


151 

on the offered rail and took a generous bite out of 
the cooky. 

“Just an instant, Roger, until that cooky disap- 
pears,” begged his mother with upraised hand. 

“I can talk all right,” mumbled Roger. 

“But we can’t hear you all right,” retorted Helen. 

“Oh, come, you like cookies as well as I do,” 
remonstrated her brother, taking in the last crumb. 

“Certainly I do, and Ethel Brown’s are the best 
ever, but I eat mine in sections.” 

“So do I — two sections,” grinned Roger. 
“There, now I’m sufficiently refreshed to tell you 
the news. I suppose you poor creatures didn’t re- 
alize there was any news, eh?” 

“By a strenuous use of our wits we gathered that 
there was something in the air when we saw you 
approach,” murmured Helen, who sometimes found 
Roger trying. 

“List, then, beloved members of my family — ” 

“Hark to the troubadour,” mocked Ethel Blue. 

“Now, child, if you interrupt your uncle Roger 
you won’t ever learn this thrilling piece of informa- 
tion that is about to fall from my ruby lips.” 

“Chirp on, then, ornithological specimen.” 

“Ma’am!” exclaimed Roger, burlesquing a fall 
from the railing. “Fortunately you don’t catch me 
in the state of ignorance that you supposed when 
you hurled that awful language at me. I haven’t 
got a grandmother who is a member of the Rose- 
mont Bird and Tree Club for nothing. An ‘orni- 
thological specimen’ is just slang for ‘bird.’ Look 
out or I’ll retaliate with ‘chicken.’ ” 


152 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Tm no chicken/’ denied Ethel Blue instantly. 

“Look at that, Mother!” implored Roger. “All 
fussed up over a trifle like that! And the funny 
part is that if I said she was ‘no chicken’ she’d be 
just as mad! Girls are so queer,” and he heaved 
an exaggerated sigh of perplexity. 

“Do let’s have your news if it’s worth telling,” 
asked Mrs. Morton. 

“She doubts me,” commented Roger haughtily. 
“Ha! You’ll see, madam, that you have no reason 
to throw asparagus on my announcement. It’s 
real news that I’m bringing. Chautauqua, the spot 
that we’re honoring by our presence this summer, 
Chautauqua — is to have a birdman!” 

The result of Roger’s announcement was all that 
he had hoped and more than he had expected. The 
Ethels fairly pranced with excitement. Helen 
clapped her hands excitedly, and Mrs. Morton laid 
down her embroidery to ask, “When is he to come ?” 

“How perfectly stunning!” 

“Where will he fly from?” 

“Where’s he going to keep his machine?” 

“Is he going to take passengers?” 

The questions flew fast and Roger covered his 
ears as if they overwhelmed him. He answered his 
mother’s question first. 

“He’s due to-morrow. Mother. They’re start- 
ing right this minute to put up the tent he’s going 
to use for his hangar. It’s down side of the steam- 
boat dock. His machine is what they call a hydro- 
aeroplane — ” 

“It will go both in the water and in the air?” 


FLYING 


153 

‘‘So I understand. I saw a picture of It and It 
looked to me as if it could go on land, too, for 
men weie pulling it down to the water’s edge on its 
own wheels.” 

“Probably the engine doesn’t work the wheels, 
though.” 

“Probably not enough for It to travel far on 
them. He starts off on the water, anyway, and then 
he rises from the water and the machine goes along 
like any aeroplane. It’s a biplane.” 

“Meaning?” queried Ethel Brown. 

“That it has two planes — two sets of wings on 
each side.” 

“You didn’t tell us whether he’s going to carry 
passengers.” 

“I don’t know. I asked, but nobody seemed 
ready to answer.” 

“Let’s go down to the dock and see them put 
up the hangar.” 

“After dinner, children, after dinner,” Insisted 
Mrs. Morton. “How long will he stay, Roger?” 

“A week or two.” 

“Then you can surely eat your dinner before rush- 
ing off. We’re so near the dock you can easily 
see every flight if you put your minds 'on It.” 

Mrs. Emerson smiled at her daughter’s words, 
for they both recalled a time when the Morton chil- 
dren were so eager to see a new teacher who had 
just come to Rosemont that they almost lived on the 
sidewalk in front of her house, in order that no 
passage In or out might escape them. 

Seldom was a meal In the Morton dining-room 


154 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

disposed of with such slight attention as this dinner 
which had to be met and conquered before the re- 
connaissance could be made. Both Ethels declared 
that they really did not feel at all like having des- 
sert to-day, and they seemed grieved when Mrs. 
Morton regretted their lack of interest in it, but 
failed to take it as a reason for allowing them to 
leave the table before the rest of the family had 
finished. 

“If weVe got to stay we might as well eat It,” 
said Ethel Brown sulkily. 

“Mary would like to see that you appreciated 
her thoughtfulness,” said Mrs. Morton gently. 
“She has taken pains to make caramel custard to- 
day because she heard you say a little while ago that 
you ‘adored’ it.” 

“Good for Mary. I’m a Selfish Susy,” declared 
Ethel Brown promptly. “I’ll eat two to make up 
for it,” she added with a cock of her head. 

“0-oh,” groaned Roger, “and me planning to 
take advantage of the dear children’s sudden and 
unusual lack of appetite I” 

“Foiled again, villain!” declaimed Helen. 

“Now, then. I’ll race you to the beach,” cried 
Roger as soon as dinner was over, and off they went, 
regardless of Grandmother Emerson’s anxieties 
about the shock to their digestions. 

After all, the hangar proved to be not much to 
see. There was a large tent to house the machine 
and there was a small tent for a dressing-room for 
the aviator and another to serve as a sleeping tent 
for his machinists who were also to act as watch- 


FLYING 


I5S 


men against damage from a sudden storm or a heavy 
wind coming up in the night, or the too curious 
fingers of the inquisitive during the day. 

The tents were entirely unremarkable, but drays 
were hauling from the freight station big boxes that 
contained the parts of the wonderful machine, and 
a rapidly increasing crowd stood about while their 
tops were unscrewed and the contents examined. 
A man who was directing the workers was proven 
to be the airman when some one called his name — 
Graham. 

“It won’t be assembled before to-morrow after- 
noon, I suspect,” he had answered. “Then I’ll try 
it out carefully. A man bird can’t take any chances 
with his wings, you know.” 

“I’d like to ask him if he’s going to take passen- 
gers,” whispered Ethel Brown, and Roger was so 
eager to find out that fact himself that he worked 
his way nearer and nearer to Mr. Graham when 
he heard some one put the question. 

“It depends,” answered that young man diplo- 
matically. “If the machine works well I may do it. 
Or I may make only exhibition flights. I shan’t 
know for a day or two.” 

“What’th it’th name?” asked Dicky, who had 
heard so much talk about birds that he thought Mr. 
Graham was bringing to light some bird pet. 

“Its name?” repeated the aviator. “It hasn’t 
a name, kid. It ought to have one, though,” he 
went on thoughtfully. “You couldn’t suggest one, 
could you?” 

“Ith it a lady bird or a boy bird?” he asked. 


156 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“H’m,” murmured Mr. Graham, seriously; “I 
never thought to ask when I bought it. We’ll have 
to give it a name that will do for either.” 

“There aren’t any,” announced Dicky firmly. 
“There’th only boy nameth and lady nameth.” 

“Then we’ll have to make up a name. It 
wouldn’t be a bad idea,” said Graham, turning to 
one of his assistants. “Why not offer a prize to 
the person who suggests the most suitable name?” 

“It would help keep up the interest.” 

“It doesn’t look as if that would need any out- 
side stimulus,” smiled Graham, glancing at the 
crowd, held back now by ropes stretched from posts 
driven down into the beach. 

When darkness fell electric lights were rigged 
so that the machinists might go on with their work, 
and all through the night they matched and fitted 
and screwed so that by morning the great bird was 
on its feet. By noon the engine was snapping 
sharply at every trial, and when the waning light 
of six o’clock fell on the lake all was in such con- 
dition that Mr. Graham was ready to make his 
first venture. 

The Morton children were in the front rank of 
the crowd that thronged the grounds about the tents. 
An extra guard kept back the people who pressed 
too closely upon the preparations still under way, for 
a mechanical bird must be as carefully prepared for 
its flight as a horse for a race. 

When all was well Mr. Graham mounted upon 
his seat. He wore just such a blue serge coat and 
just such white flannel trousers as a thousand men 


FLYING 


157 


on the grounds were wearing, and the Mortons did 
not know whether to feel disappointed because his 
get-up was not more spectacular or to admire the 
coolness with which he stepped aboard for a flight 
that seemed to them fraught with peril in the every 
day garb of the ordinary man who never leaves 
the ground except in imagination. 

“I like him this way,” announced Ethel Blue. 
“It makes you feel as if he was so far from being 
afraid that he didn’t even take the trouble to make 
any special preparations.” 

“I hoped he’d wear goggles and a leather suit 
and cap,” said Roger, who was decidedly disap- 
pointed. “Those fellers look like some sports.” 

But if Mr. Graham’s appearance was disappoint- 
ing, his flight was all that their fancy had painted 
it and more. He mounted with apparent careless- 
ness to his seat, and then the machine was pushed 
from the hangar to the beach. Leaving its beak 
in the water the helpers ran back and whirled its 
tail violently. A whir of remonstrance answered 
at once and the engine took up the complaint. 

“There she goes ! There she goes !” cried Roger 
and a hum of delight and wonder rose from the 
crowd. 

Out into the water she swept, chugging noisily 
over the surface, her wings tipping gently from side 
to side as she sped. The people on the gallery of 
the Pier House cheered. Men waved their hats 
and women their hands. 

“She’s going up! See her rise?” they cried once 
more as the big bird’s beak turned upward and the 


158 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

body followed with a swiftness that took the whole 
machine into the air while the spectators were guess- 
ing how long she would drag before she felt the 
wind under her wings. 

And then, southward, straight southward, she 
flew, rising, ever rising until she was high in air 
and but a spot in the distance. Not until the spot 
had disappeared did the crowd breathe naturally. 

“That’s the most marvellous sight I ever saw!” 

“I wonder how it feels.” 

“Wouldn’t you like to try it?” 

Then came a cry of “Here she comes back!” and 
in an incredibly short time, the engine’s buzz once 
more struck their waiting ears. As he approached 
Chautauqua the airman sank lower and lower, until 
he looked like a mammoth bird darting toward one 
shore and then the other, swooping down to catch 
an insect, and rising again until the rays of the 
sinking sun glistened on his wings. 

The Mortons were not the only Chautauquans 
who were eager to know if Mr. Graham was going 
to take up passengers. Never did he make a flight 
that he was not beset by would-be fliers urging their 
company upon him. Roger hung about with desire 
in his heart, but he never spoke to the aviator about 
it because he had seen so many grown men refused 
that he knew there was no chance for a boy. 

One day, however, he overheard a conversation 
between Mr. Graham and one of his mechanics 
which put hope into his heart. 

“I’m perfectly sure of her now,” the airman said. 
“She flies like a real bird and I’ve got her tuned 


FLYING 


IS9 

up just the way I want her. I believe Til let the 
passengers come on.” 

Roger went home delighted. The next day he 
was at the hangar long before any one else, and 
spoke diffidently to Mr. Graham’s helper. 

“I heard Mr. Graham say yesterday that he was 
going to take passengers to-day,” he said hesitat- 
ingly. “Of course I’m only a boy, but I do want 
to go up.” 

“Want to just as much as if you were a man, 
eh?” smiled the mechanician. “I shouldn’t wonder 
if you did. Have you got the price ?” 

That there should be a “price” had not occurred 
to Roger. He flushed as he said, “I don’t know. 
How much is it?” 

“Twenty-five dollars.” 

Roger drew a long whistle and turned away. 

“No flying for me, until flying’s free,” he chanted 
drearily. “Forget that I spoke,” he added, nodding 
to the young man. 

“Too bad, old chap. Perhaps your ship will 
come in some day and then you for the clouds,” 
he called cheerily after Roger’s retreating form. 

“Uh, huh,” grunted Roger skeptically, for never 
had he had the sum of twenty-five dollars to do what 
he chose with, and he set about banishing the 
thought of flying from his mind for many years to 
come. 

There was no lack of passengers at any sum the 
aviator chose to ask, it seemed. All the Morton 
children were on the beach regularly at every flight 
and they saw man after man and’ woman after 


i6o ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


woman ascend. The novices always wore a nerv- 
ously doubtful smile as they left the familiar ties 
of earth and water behind them and a laugh of de- 
light as they came back unafraid and joyous. 

“It looks as if it must be the most perfect feel- 
ing that you could have,” sighed Ethel Blue as they 
watched a beaming woman approach over the water 
and then come down from her seat beside the air 
chauffeur. “I’m like Roger — I could almost die 
happy if I could have just one fly.” 

“The airman has offered a prize for the best 
name for his machine,” Ethel Brown read from the 
Daily at breakfast one morning. 

“Don’t I wish I could get it!” ejaculated Roger. 

“Or I!” “Or I!” “Or I!” came from Helen 
and Ethel Brown and Ethel Blue. 

“It was Dicky’s notion. He suggested it to Mr. 
Graham by asking him what the name of his bird 
was. He ought to give a prize to Dicky for put- 
ting the idea into his head,” said Roger. 

“Or to some member of Dicky’s family who 
would enjoy the ride more,” added Mr. Emerson 
slyly. 

“What would be a good name for it?’' wondered 
Mrs. Emerson. 

“Hummer,” said Roger. “It makes such a hum- 
ming noise.” 

“Buzz-saw,” suggested Grandfather Emerson. 

“Bumble-bee,” offered Mrs. Morton. 

“Humming bird,” suggested Helen. 

“Swallow,” ^^Hirondelle/* cried both Ethels at 
once. 



She was up, up, up in the air, the water shining beneath her” 


[See p. 166 ] 


# 



FLYING 


i6i 


*‘Hirohdellef That means ‘swallow,* ” trans- 
lated Grandfather Emerson. “You two had the 
same idea at the same moment.’* 

“It’s prettier than a noisy name,** defended Ethel 
Brown. 

“The swallow is prettier than the bumble bee or 
the humming bird,** defended Ethel Blue at the same 
moment. “I*d rather give the machine a name that 
made you think of its graceful motion rather than 
one that makes you think of its horrid noise.** 

“I withdraw ‘Buzz-saw.* You’ve convinced me,” 
said Mr. Emerson. 

“Mr. Graham says here,” Ethel Brown picked up 
the newspaper again, “that he’d like to have the 
suggestions sent him by mail and that he’ll decide 
to-morrow, and that the prize will be a ride in his 
hydroplane.” 

“Me for pen and ink,” shouted Roger as he rose 
promptly from the table. 

“Let’s send ours in together,” said both Ethels at 
once. 

They often spoke together in this way. It 
seemed as if their being constantly together made 
them think the same thoughts at the same time. 

“We’ll tell him that we called out Swallow and 
Hirondelle at the same instant and so we’re apply- 
ing for the prize together, and we hope it will 
please him because it’s the name of one of the 
most graceful birds there is and we think his air- 
ship is the most graceful one we ever saw.” 

“Perfectly true, considering it’s the only one you 
ever saw,” giggled Helen. 

II 


1 62 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“Never mind,” said Mrs. Morton soothingly. 
“Write him just that note and it will please him 
that you like his machine even if he doesn’t care 
for the name you suggest.” 

Mrs. Morton had thought seriously about the 
possibility of one of the children’s going up with 
Mr. Graham ever since the airman had come to 
the grounds. At first she had dismissed the thought 
as of something too dangerous for her to think of 
permitting. Then, as she watched Mr. Graham 
day by day and saw his extreme care and learned 
from his mechanician that he never failed per- 
sonally to test every wire and nut before he started 
out, she grew to have such confidence in him that 
she was almost as disappointed as Roger when she 
learned the fee for a fifteen minute trip in the air. 
Now there was at least a chance that some member 
of the family might have the opportunity, so she 
made no objection to the sending in of the sugges- 
tions. 

There was a great writing of letters, a mighty 
flurry of envelopes, a loud calling for postage 
stamps, and a march in procession of the younger 
members of the household up the hill to the Post 
Office. 

“Mr. Graham flies to Ma)rville every morning 
to carry a special bag of Chautauqua postcards to 
the mail there,” said Roger. “Let’s go to the 
hangar when he starts. He always brings the bag 
down the hill himself and perhaps he’ll have his 
own mail at the same time and we can sit off on 
the dock somewhere and watch him open it.” 


FLYING 


163 

“Oh, I don’t think we’d better do that,” said 
Ethel Blue shrinkingly. “It would seem like in- 
truding on him.” 

“Perhaps it might,” agreed Roger. “The truth 
is. I’m so perfectly crazy to go up I’m losing my 
manners.” 

“Let’s write postcards to Father and Uncle Rich- 
ard, any way,” suggested Ethel Brown. “You 
know they’re stamped ‘Aerial Delivery’ or some 
such words and it will interest them awfully at Vera 
Cruz to know their mail started on its way to 
Mexico by airship.” 

They went into the writing room at the Post 
Office and prepared the special postcards, and had 
the pleasure of nodding to Mr. Graham when he 
came for the bag. They had slipped their own 
letters into the regular letter drop and they watched 
him receive a handful of personal letters, among 
which were their own, with a vivid interest because 
they felt that in a few hours their fate would be 
decided. 

“I’m going to feel sorry if I don’t get the prize,” 
confessed Helen, “but not more than one of us can 
get it — unless he should take up the Ethels together 
because they’re little — and I’ll be glad if one of us 
has the chance to go.” 

“Me, too,” said Roger stoutly. “But I wish he 
had an ark and could take the whole family.” 

“We needn’t be so sure that a member of our 
family will take the prize,” suggested Mrs. Morton 
when they came home. “There are one or two 
other families on the grounds and I’ve no doubt the 


1 64 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

poor man will regret his offer when he has to open 
his mail.” 

“He had some crop this morning,” said Roger. 
“I dare say it will grow all day long.” 

It was the next day but one before the exciting 
question was decided. Then Mr. Graham inserted 
a card in the Daily, Ethel Brown read it again at 
the breakfast table. 

“ ‘Mr. Graham desires to announce,’ ” she read, 
“ ‘that two young ladies have suggested the name 
he has been most pleased with — Swallow and 
Hirondelle. He prefers the French form but he 
will be glad to discharge his obligations to both the 
persons who suggested practically the same name.’ ” 

“It’s us/^ murmured Ethel Blue, too surprised to 
speak aloud. 

“ ‘If Miss Ethel Brown Morton and Miss Ethel 
Blue Morton will be at the hangar at six o’clock 
this evening Mr. Graham will redeem his offer.’ ” 

“Isn’t it too wonderful!” gasped Helen. 

“I’m glad of it,” declared Roger bravely and he 
tweaked each Ethel’s hair as he left the room. 

“I’m almost sorry,” whispered Ethel Blue; 
“Roger wants it so much.” 

Mrs. Morton smiled at her. 

“You’ve won it fairly,” she said. “We’ll all be 
at the dock to see you go this afternoon.” 

There could not have been a better evening for 
a first flight. There was not a breath of air to 
cause any anxiety either to passengers or to ob- 
servers. The sun had sunk far enough for its rays 
not to be disturbing unless the aviator flew much 


FLYING 


165 

higher than he was in the habit of doing. The 
crowd on the shore was the only upsetting feature 
to rather timid girls. 

“We mustn’t mind them,” whispered Ethel Blue. 

“There’s always something disagreeable about 
everything nice; this time it’s the people,” agreed 
Ethel Brown. 

“They’re kind and interested. Forget all about 
them,” advised Mrs. Morton. 

Mr. Emerson escorted the two girls to the 
hangar. 

“Here are the two young women who suggested 
the Swallow as the most appropriate name for your 
big bird,” he said, smiling. 

Mr. Graham shook hands with them both. 

“I know your faces very well,” he said. “You’ve 
been here every day.” 

“Yes,” they nodded. 

“We’re so much obliged to you,” said Ethel Blue. 

“We’ve been perfectly crazy to go up,” said Ethel 
Brown. 

“Which of you suggested Hirondellef^ asked the 
aviator. 

“Ethel Blue did”; and 

“I did,” answered both girls in unison. 

“Then I’ll ask Miss Ethel Blue to go up first, 
since it is her choice that I’ve had painted on my 
machine’s wings.” 

Sure enough, as the aircraft came trundling out 
of the tent there were letters to be seen indistinctly 
on the under side of the lower planes. Ethel Blue 
clasped her hands nervously; but Mr. Emerson was 


1 66 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


speaking calmly to her, and Mr. Graham was tak- 
ing a last look over the machine so that she felt 
sure that everything would be secure, and Aunt 
Marion and the children were smiling just the other 
side of the ropes, and Ethel Brown was waiting for 
her to come back so that she could have her turn, 
and above all, the words of the good Bishop rang 
through her mind. “Don’t let your imagination run 
away with you.” 

Of a sudden she became perfectly cool, and when 
Mr. Graham helped her into the little seat and 
fastened a strap around her waist she laughed 
heartily at his joke about the number of holes dif- 
ference between the size of her waist and that of 
the last passenger. 

Then he climbed beside her, and the machine be- 
gan to move clumsily forward as the men ran it 
down to the water. 

“Hold tight,” came a voice that was strong and 
kind. 

The water splashed in her face and she knew 
that the hydroplane was pretending it was a duck. 

Then came the kind voice again. 

“We’re going to rise now. Open your eyes.” 

She obeyed and of a sudden there thrilled through 
her the same delightful sensation she had felt in her 
dreams when she had been a bird and had soared 
higher and higher toward the sky. Then she had 
wept when she wakened to realize that it had not 
happened at all. Now it was truly happening. 
She was up, up, up in the air; the water was shining 
beneath her; the hilly land was growing flatter and 


FLYING 


167 

flatter as she looked down upon it. Trees seemed 
like shrubs, boats like water beetles. A motor boat 
that had tried to race them was left hopelessly be- 
hind. 

“It’s Bemus Point,” she screamed into Graham’s 
ear, and he smiled and nodded. 

“We’re going to turn,” he shouted back. 

Then they dipped and soared, the aviator always 
telling her what he was going to do so that she 
might not be taken by surprise. As they ap- 
proached Chautauqua again they saw the people on 
the shore and the dock applauding but the noise 
of the engine was so great that the sounds did not 
reach them. 

“Down we go,” warned Mr. Graham, and in 
landing they reversed the starting process. 

There were smiles and shouts of welcome for 
both of them as they beached. 

^‘Hirondelle looks bully painted^ on the wings,” 
called Roger. 

Mr. Graham helped Ethel from her seat. 

“You’re the youngest passenger I’ve ever taken 
up,” he said, “but I ve never had a pluckier.” 

“Never a pluckier.” Ethel Blue said the words 
over and over while Ethel Brown took her turn 
and sailed away toward Mayville and then down the 
lake for a five mile stretch. 

“Never a pluckier.” 

She knew exactly why she had not been afraid. 
She had not felt that she was a girl trying to be a 
swallow; while the flight lasted she really had been 
the Hirondelle of her dreams. 


CHAPTER XIV 


NIAGARA FALLS 

‘ ‘ T T OW would you two Ethels like to go to 

Xx Niagara Falls?” asked Mrs. Morton a 
day or two after the famous flight, as she slipped 
back into its envelope a letter which she had just 
read. 

“Oh!” cried both girls in long drawn joy. 

“This letter is from Mrs. Jackson at Fort Ed- 
ward in Buffalo,” explained Mrs. Morton. “Lieu- 
tenant Jackson Is your father’s best friend, Ethel 
Blue, and Mrs. Jackson knew your mother and she 
wants to seize this opportunity of our being near 
Buffalo this summer to see her friend’s little 
daughter.” 

“Not — me — and Niagara?” questioned Ethel 
Brown. 

“She has a daughter about your age and she 
thought it would be a pleasant week-end for all 
three of you if you two could go to Buffalo on Fri- 
day afternoon and stay over Sunday. She will take 
you on Saturday to see the Falls.” 

“How perfectly magnificent!” exclaimed Ethel 
Blue. 

“How shall we get to Buffalo?” asked Ethel 
Brown. “We’ve never been so far alone.” 

“Roger will put you on the train at Mayville and 

i68 


NIAGARA FALLS 169 

Mrs. Jackson will meet you at the station at Buf- 
falo.” 

“All we’ll have to do will be to sit still?” 

“Between the parting with Roger and the meet- 
ing with Mrs. Jackson. Exactly,” returned Mrs. 
Morton, smiling. 

“Are we equal to it?” Ethel Brown demanded 
of Ethel Blue in the quizzical way that made her 
so much like Roger. 

“We are,” returned Ethel Blue promptly, and the 
two girls marched about the room, their arms over 
each other’s shoulders, with the back-step that they 
delighted in — one, two, three steps forward, and 
the fourth step back. 

“One, two, three, back; one, two, three, back,” 
they chanted. 

“Why this hilarity?” questioned Roger from the 
threshold. 

“We are going to the Falls, the Falls, the Falls, 

We are going to the Falls in the morning,” 
chanted the prospective travellers. 

“You are!” ejaculated Roger. “When? How? 
Are we all going?” 

“Not you. Only the two best-behaved members 
of the family are invited,” declared Ethel Brown. 

“Mother, aren’t my manners the top notch of 
perfection?” Roger demanded. 

“They’re very good at times,” returned his 
mother calmly. 

“ *At times’ means all the time, of course,” in- 
sisted Roger. “Did Mother ever compliment you 
like that, kids?” 


170 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“You’re going part way with us,” they announced 
kindly. 

“Good enough. How far? To Buffalo?” 

Roger beamed. 

“Not quite. To Mayville.” 

Roger groaned. 

“To Mayville! Three miles. You’ll be saying 
next that I may have the privilege of walking there 
to see you off and waving my hand as the train 
departs.” 

“That’s just what we are saying, my child. Ex- 
cept that we’ll all travel the three miles in our 
trolley car or on our steamer instead of on our 
feet.” 

“Mother, Mother ! Help 1 Help 1” cried Roger, 
holding his hands to his distracted brow. “Are 
these young women mad or do my ears deceive me? 
Do I ‘lamp’ Niagara Falls? Or does my part of 
the trip stop at Mayville?” 

“If I get your meaning through your somewhat 
obscure language,” replied Mrs. Morton who liked 
to take an occasional shot at Roger’s slang, “you’ll 
not see Niagara Falls, but you will escort your 
sister and cousin to the train at Mayville.” 

“But you don’t mean to tell me that those babes, 
those infants in arms are going the rest of the way 
by themselves? They’ll be lost in the vastnesses 
of Buffalo! They’ll shoot the chutes or fall the 
Falls or—” 

“When your breath gives out we’ll tell you what 
has happened,” remarked Ethel Brown loftily. 

“ ‘Pray do,’ ” quoted Roger. 


NIAGARA FALLS 


171 

“WeVe had an invitation — that is, Ethel Blue 
has—” 

‘‘I judged as much,” commented Roger faintly. 

“ — from Mrs. Jackson at Fort Edward.” 

“Ah! A great light begins to break upon me!” 

“She asked Ethel Blue to go to Buffalo for the 
week-end and to bring me — ” 

“ — and we’re to go to Niagara Falls on Satur- 
day,” finished Ethel Blue triumphantly. 

Roger frowned. 

“All I’ve got to say is that I’m proud to be the 
three-mile escort of such travelled young ladies. I 
bow before you and place my humble services at 
your disposal,” which he did with an elaborate flour- 
ish and his hand on his heart. 

It seemed to the Ethels that there were a thou- 
sand matters to be attended to before they went on 
Friday. They had to decide what dresses they 
should wear and what they should take. Each one 
had her own suitcase and they had been fitting their 
bags with small travelling comforts for several 
months before the summer trip to Chautauqua. 
One or two trifling affairs still remained undone and 
these they set themselves to make before the event- 
ful day of departure. 

“When I see a bag opened I know at once 
whether its owner is a tidy person or not,” Mrs. 
Morton said. “Everything ought to be neatly ar- 
ranged and covered with a tuck-in square over 
all.” 

It was the tuck-in square that neither of the girls 
had finished before leaving Rosemont. Now they 


172 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

were determined that If Mrs. Jackson happened to 
be about when they opened their bags she should 
see that these daughters were worthy of their neat 
soldier fathers. They went to the dry goods shop 
and bought each a half yard of sllkollne. Ethel 
Brown’s had yellow flowers on It and Ethel Blue’s 
had cornflowers. These they finished with an Inch- 
wide hem, featherstitched at the top, Ethel Brown’s 
with yellow silk and Ethel Blue’s with blue silk. 
When their bags were all packed they laid these 
pieces over everything and fastened the straps out- 
side of them. 

“The cloth prevents the straps from doing any 
injury to your freshly laundered clothes, you see,” 
explained Mrs. Morton. 

“And It keeps dust out, too,” said Ethel Brown, 

“And It certainly looks perfectly scrumptious,” 
decided Ethel Blue with her head on one side ad- 
miringly. 

The Ethels were up bright and early on the ex- 
citing morning. 

“What’s the use,” demanded Roger, “of your go- 
ing around like dizzy antelopes at this time of day 
when you don’t have to take the boat until two 
o’clock?” 

“You’d be doing it yourself if you were going,” 
retorted Ethel Brown. “Somehow it spreads out 
the fun.” 

“For you,” growled Roger. “For us stay-at- 
homes it flaunts your good luck in our faces — no, 
I didn’t mean that,” he added quickly as he saw a 
shadow grow in Ethel Blue’s sensitive eyes. “Hon- 


NIAGARA FALLS 


173 

est, Fm mighty glad you kids have got the chance 
to go. Of course I am. I was only fooling.” 

“I do wish you and Helen were going too,” an- 
swered Ethel Blue. “It would be lots nicer.” 

Roger saw that he had made a mistake by in- 
sisting on his misfortune, a mistake that often is 
made when we try to be funny, and he laid himself 
out to be especially nice to the girls. He took 
every care of them, carrying their bags, passing 
them through the gate and helping them on to the 
boat with as much formality as he would have shown 
to his mother and grandmother. 

Though not long, it was a pleasant sail from 
Chautauqua to Mayville. The boat touched at 
Point Chautauqua on the other side of the lake 
where a group of summer-boarder young people 
were saying “Good-bye” to a friend with many loud 
exclamations of grief. The boys wrung imaginary 
tears from their handkerchiefs and one of the girls 
pretended that she required a tub that was standing 
on the pier to contain the evidences of her woe. 

The Ethels were hugely amused at this comedy 
and laughed heartily, while Roger, who was still in 
a serious mood, frowned and called it all “stupid.” 

At Mayville they had to walk the length of the 
pier, but at its head they found the station. Roger 
presented each of the girls with a magazine with 
which he had provided himself before leaving Chau- 
tauqua, and a box of candy and a package of sand- 
wiches gave them the wherewithal for afternoon 
tea if they should become too hungry for endurance 
before they reached Buffalo. 


174 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Afternoon tea without the tea,” smiled Ethel 
Brown. 

“I do wish Mrs. Jackson had asked you,” re- 
peated Ethel Blue as Roger helped her up the steps 
of the car. 

“She would if she had known how nice I am,” 
laughed Roger. “Good-bye, good-bye,” and he 
waved a farewell as long as he could see their car. 

Once under way the girls gave themselves up to 
the excitement of their first travelling by themselves. 
They examined the faces of all the passengers and 
decided that no one was very handsome but that 
they all looked very kind and that they should not 
hesitate to call upon them for help if they needed it. 

“The old man just behind us is something like 
Grandfather,” said Ethel Brown. “If we don’t see 
Mrs. Jackson right off when we get out at Buffalo 
we’ll ask him what we ought to do.” 

“Aunt Marion said we’d better not speak to any- 
body except the men wearing the railway uniform,” 
objected Ethel Blue. “If she isn’t in sight when we 
get off we’ll ask the conductor or a brakeman or 
a porter where the waiting room is and we’ll go 
right there and sit down till she comes.” 

But they need not have been at all concerned, 
for Mrs. Jackson was at the very steps of their 
car when they walked down them. A girl of their 
own age stood just behind her. Mrs. Jackson was 
tall, with light hair and her daughter was strikingly 
like her. 

“I’m sure this is Ethel Blue 1” cried Mrs. Jackson 
without hesitation. “You have your mother’s eyes. 


NIAGARA FALLS 


175 

dear child. And this is Ethel Brown. Here is 
my daughter. Her name is Katharine.” 

Katharine was not shy. She had lived all her life 
in garrisons and she was accustomed to meeting 
many people. She shook hands with her guests and 
took Ethel Blue’s bag. 

“A friend of Mother’s let us have her car to 
come to the station in,” she said. “It’s just out- 
side this door. It’s more fun than going in the 
street car.” 

The Ethels thought so, too, though they flew 
along so fast that they hardly could see the sights 
of the new city. 

Katharine chattered all the time. 

“You came along the lake almost all the way. 
Mother says. It must have been lovely. I’m so 
glad we’re here at Fort Edward. It’s right on the 
water and the sunsets are beautiful.” 

“This is the memorial to President McKinley,” 
Mrs. Jackson informed the Ethels as they drove 
through Niagara Square. “It was in Buffalo that 
he was shot, you remember.” 

It did not take many minutes to reach Fort Ed- 
ward, which they found to be merely barracks and 
officers’ houses, with no fortified works. 

“When Canada and the United States decided 
not to have any fortifications between the two 
countries it looked like a dangerous experiment,” 
said Mrs. Jackson when the Ethels, soldiers’ chil- 
dren, remarked upon this peculiarity of the so-called 
fort. “It has worked well, however. There have 
been times when it would have been a sore tempta- 


176 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

tion to make use of the forts if they had' ex- 
isted.” 

‘T wonder what would have happened in Europe 
if there had been no forts between Germany and 
France,” said Ethel Blue thoughtfully. 

“Armament has not brought lasting peace to 
them,” Mrs. Jackson agreed to the girl’s thought. 

It was an evening of delight to the Mortons. 
They always realized to the full that they actually 
belonged to the Service when occasion took them 
to a fort or a navy yard. They saw the flag run 
down at sunset and they beamed happily at every- 
thing that Katharine pointed out to them and at 
all the stories that Lieutenant Jackson told them. 
Ethel Blue was particularly interested in his tales 
of the days at West Point when he and her father 
had ranked so nearly together that it was nip and 
tuck between them all the way through. 

“Until the end,” Mr. Jackson owned handsomely. 
“Then old Dick Morton came out on top.” 

It was novel to Ethel Blue to hear her father 
called “old Dick Morton,” but Lieutenant Jackson 
said it with so much affection that she liked the 
sound of it. 

Of course the Niagara expedition was topmost 
in the minds of the Ethels. 

“You’ve never been to the Falls?” Mrs. Jackson 
asked. “I’m glad Katharine is to have the pleas- 
ure of showing them to you first. I wish I could 
go with you but I have an engagement this morning 
that I can’t put off, so Gretchen is going to take 
you.” 


NIAGARA FALLS 


177 


“Gretchen is like your Mary,” explained Kath- 
arine. “She used to be my nurse. I don’t ever 
remember Gretchen’s not being with us.” 

Gretchen proved to be a large, comfortable look- 
ing German woman of forty and the Ethels liked 
her at once. They went by trolley to the Falls. 

“It takes a little longer,” Mrs. Jackson said, “but 
if you’re like me you’ll enjoy seeing a new bit of 
country and you can do it better from the electric 
car than from the steam train.” 

It was a wonderful day for all the girls. The 
Mortons enjoyed all the new sights and were not 
ashamed to express their delight; and Katharine, 
although she had taken many guests on this same 
trip, took pleasure in seeing their pleasure. 

Their first stop was before they reached the city 
of Niagara Falls. 

“What is this big place?” asked Ethel Brown. 

“They make use of the power of the water to run 
factories and to light towns,” explained Katharine. 
“You see those wheels lying flat on their sides?” 

She pointed down into a deep shaft whose drip- 
ping walls sent a chill up to the onlookers. 

“Those are turbines,” Katharine went on. “The 
water from the river is racing along outside not 
doing any good in the world except to look excit- 
ing, so they let some of it flow in through those 
openings way down there and it turns these tur- 
bines and they make machinery go.” 

“I noticed ever so many factories near here.” 

“There are a great many here because power is 
so cheap, but they are also able to send electric 
12 


178 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

power many miles away. Buffalo is lighted by 
electricity from Niagara, and there are lots of fac- 
tories all around here that take their power from 
the Falls.” 

“What becomes of the water that makes these 
turbines go?” 

“When you see it come out of a small tunnel 
below the Falls and compare it with the amount 
that is still tumbling over the Falls you’ll be wonder- 
struck that so small an amount can do so much 
work. We’ll see the place later.” 

Taking the car again they completed their jour- 
ney to the town and the girls could hardly wait to 
see the great cascade which they heard roaring in 
the distance. Katharine led them first to the very 
edge of the American Fall. The thick green water 
slid over the brink almost under their feet in a 
firm, moving wall, and they had to lean over to 
see it break into white foam on the rocks below. 
Like a great horseshoe ran the upper edge, the 
centre hollowed back by centuries of wear from the 
swift stream that pressed out of Lake Erie through 
the ever-narrowing channel toward Lake Ontario. 

Over the bridge they went to Goat Island where 
they seemed on a level with the swirling mass that 
bore down directly upon them. Gretchen gave art 
occasional scream of anxiety. 

“Dis water it makes me frighted,” she confessed. 

The girls raced over the islands called the Sis- 
ters and every sight on the American side except the 
Gorge ride was behind them by luncheon time. 

Refreshed by food they started out again. 


NIAGARA FALLS 


179 


“We’ll go down the Gorge on the American side,” 
explained Katharine, “and come back on the Cana- 
dian side. I’ve tried both ways and I like that 
best” 

The Gorge ride was all that Katharine had hinted. 

“It takes your breath away,” gasped Ethel Blue 
as the car traveled slowly beside the turbulent water, 
crowding and racing after its fall from the cliff 
above, and hurrying on, incredibly deep, to its out- 
let. 

“I hardly want to look at It,” admitted Ethel 
Brown as they passed the Whirlpool with its threat- 
ening circular motion. 

Gretchen frankly closed her eyes. 

“It is wonderful, but too big for me,” she ad- 
mitted. 

“You’ll not be frightened when we go back, be- 
cause the track on the Canadian side runs high up 
on the cliff,” said Katharine. “Then when we 
reach the Falls once more we’ll go down to the 
water level on that side and take the Maid of the 
Mistr 

“What’s that?” 

“A tiny steamer. It goes close up to the Falls — 
so near you almost feel you are under them.” 

“You can really go under them, can’t you? I’ve 
heard people tell about it.” 

“Yes, but it’s no place for children. Father say§, 
so we’ll have to put up with the ‘Maid.’ ” 

It proved, however, that they would have to put 
up with even less. For when they prepared to 
make the change of cars that was necessary for 


i8o ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


their return on the Canadian side, one of the men 
in charge stopped Gretchen. 

“You’re German,” he said, 
she answered placidly. 

“Then you can’t come here.” 

“I can’t come here! Why not? I been here 
many times — I und my young lady.” 

“No Germans allowed here,” he insisted. 

“She’s my nurse,” explained Katharine. “My 
father’s an officer at Fort Edward. He’s an Amer- 
ican. We are neutral,” she insisted. 

It was all in vain. The Canadian had his orders 
and he could not be moved. 

“Orders,” was all that Katharine could get by 
way of explanation. Being a soldier’s daughter she 
understood that orders were meant to be obeyed 
and she did not insist for long. 

“It’s too bad, but I don’t see how we can help 
it,” she said. “I suppose every German is suspected 
now, but it’s silly to think Gretchen is a spy,” and 
she threw her arm around the shoulder of the Ger- 
man woman. She had been frightened by the man’s 
roughness. 

“Don’t you mind, Gretchen dear,” she said. 
“When the war is over we’ll come again. I’m sorry 
about the Maid of the Mist,** she apologized to the 
girls, “but of course we can’t go without Gretchen.” 

It was a rather thoughtful group that returned 
to Buffalo, for the little experience with Gretchen 
had made them all feel that the war they were hear- 
ing so much about was nearer than they had re- 
alized. 


NIAGARA FALLS 


i8i. 

“Somehow It has seemed as far away as the 
moon,” said Ethel Brown. “But now I feel as if 
it might jump out at us any minute.” 

“It won’t,” Lieutenant Jackson reassured her; 
“but Gretchen’s experience gives us something to 
think about from many points of view.” 

Sunday passed happily and on Monday Mrs. Jack- 
son and Katharine took their guests to the station 
and started them toward Mayville, where Roger 
met them. 

“It has been a wonderful visit,” said Ethel Blue 
to her aunt. “Mrs. Jackson told me a great deal 
about my mother. She must have been lovely.” 

“She was a very dear woman,” replied Mrs. Mor- 
ton, kissing her niece. 

“The only uncomfortable thing was about Gret- 
chen,” Ethel went on. “I wish that man hadn’t 
frightened her.” 


CHAPTER XV 


THE PAGEANT 


RANDFATHER,’* cried Roger as he sat 

Vjr down to dinner one day, “do you remember 
that when we were in the trolley coming here from 
Westfield you promised that some time you would 
tell us about Celoron?” 

“I forgot all about it, son. Shall I tell you now?’* 

“You won’t have to now. There’s going to be 
a pageant of the history of Chautauqua Lake and 
we’ll learn the whole thing from that. There’ll 
be historical scenes, and Francis Wilson, the actor, 
will wind it up with a real play. He’s going to 
bring his company with him from New York.” 

“Who told you about it?” asked Ethel Brown. 
“The lady who is to direct the whole thing came 
to the Girls’ Club this morning and explained it to 
us and picked out the girls she wants to take part.” 

“I met the Director and he told me,” replied 
Roger. “He’s going to be La Salle himself, and 
the Director of the Summer Schools is to be another 
of those old chaps — Brule, I think his name was; 
and the Institution Organist is to take the part of 
Celoron.” 

“What are you going to be?” asked Mrs. Emer- 
son. 

“An Indian brave.” 

“I’m going to be an Indian boy,” piped up Dicky. 

182 


THE PAGEANT 183 

“The lady came to the Boys’ Club, too, this morn- 
ing.” 

“You’ll have to put soot on your hair, kid,” 
teased Roger, “and brown your speaking counte- 
nance.” 

“So shall I,” said Helen. “I’m to be a squaw. 
A lot of girls from the Vacation Club are to be 
squaws. It will be awfully good fun except the 
browning up. They say that if you put vaseline 
on your face first the stuff comes off without any 
trouble.” 

“I hope it does,” Ethel Brown wished. “I’m to 
be an Indian girl.” 

“I especially hope it does,” continued Helen, “be- 
cause I have to be a lady of the French Court later 
on and I’d hate to have my Indian color stay with 
me I” 

“Everybody is accounted for except Ethel Blue. 
What are you going to do?” asked Mrs. Morton, 
smiling at her niece. 

“I’m a Flower Sprite and so is Dorothy.” 

“You can wear your own complexion, then.” 

“I don’t believe sprites ever have hair like mine.” 

“You can’t prove that they don’t,” declared 
Roger, smartly. “The pageant is going to be the 
grandest thing of the sort that Chautauqua ever 
had. There are to be lots of grown people in it, 
and the choir and the orchestra are to provide the 
music and there’s to be a minuet — ” 

“Didn’t I take my first lesson to-day I” exclaimed 
Helen. “My knees are almost out of commission 
from that courtesy!” 


1 84 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“They wanted me to learn that, too; hand on 
your heart business for the men, and prance around 
like an ostrich in a zoo trying to look over the fence ! 
I told them learning the Indian War Dance was all 
I was equal to.” 

“It’s more in your style,” commented Helen drily. 

“It seems a good opportunity to learn both. You 
and Helen might get up a minuet when your club 
has some sort of party next winter,” suggested Mrs. 
Morton. 

“That’s so,” agreed Helen; “and Margaret and 
James are both going to learn it, and it will be a 
lot easier to drill the new ones if four of us know it 
already.” 

“All right,” Roger accepted the proposal 
promptly. “I’ll tell them after dinner that they 
can order one of those white monkey wigs for me, 
too.” 

“You won’t look any sillier than you will as a 
red Indian,” urged Helen. 

“Roger would like to have us think that he’d 
rather appear as a child of nature than a child of 
art,” smiled his grandmother. 

“So I would,” insisted Roger; “but the main thing 
is to do what will help most, like a true member of 
the United Service Club in good and regular stand- 
ing.” 

Ethel Blue applauded. 

“That suits you, does it, kid?” and Roger grinned 
cheerfully at the club’s founder. “Are all of you 
going to rehearse this afternoon? They say that 
when you run up into a bunch of people anywhere 


THE PAGEANT 185 

on the grounds for the next week it will be a squad 
of pageant performers rehearsing something.” 

“It looks to me as if it would be a tight squeeze 
to get it ready in that time,” observed grandfather. 

“The lady who is to direct the pageant comes 
from Chicago and she has only this spare time in 
all the summer.” 

“Some of the parts are all prepared,” said Ethel 
Blue. 

“How do you know?” 

“Dorothy told me.” 

Dorothy sang in the Children’s Choir and kept 
up with the musical activities of Chautauqua more 
than the Mortons, who were not especially musical. 

“Dorothy says that all the music has been ready 
for some time, so that the singers and players will 
need just one rehearsal to fit them in right with the 
other parts of the performance.” 

“And one of the Vacation Club girls told me,” 
said Helen, “that the elaborate costumes for the 
ladies and gentlemen of the French Court were to 
be sent from New York and Chicago, so that only 
the simple things will have to be made here.” 

“The Flower Sprites are to wear floating slips of 
white cheese cloth,” said Ethel Blue. “I think I 
can make mine myself.” 

“I know I can make my Indian clothes,” said 
Ethel Brown, “because they are going to have pat- 
terns at the Girls’ Club this afternoon and some one 
to show us how and we’ll all make them together.” 

“The Vacation girls who are to be squaws are 
going down there this afternoon, too,” Helen said. 


1 86 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“I’ll walk with you if you’ll wait till I find my sew- 
ing bag.” 

“How are the sewing lessons coming on?” asked 
Mrs. Emerson. 

“The best ever, Grandmother. I can make a 
pretty good buttonhole already and by next week 
I’ll be able to fill Mother’s order for middies for 
the Ethels.” 

“Perhaps your career will prove to be the humble 
one of sewing,” guessed grandmother slyly. 

“I don’t know that it is so very humble,” de- 
fended Helen stoutly. “It’s one of the most useful 
occupations there is if you just look at the domestic 
side of it, and it can be developed into a fine art if 
you want to go into embroidery. And my teacher 
says that dressmaking is a fine art, too, when you 
are designing dresses and not merely turning them 
out as coverings for the human frame.” 

Grandmother laughed. 

“The factories will turn out the coverings for us, 
but I can see that your teacher means the adapting 
of a dress to the style of the wearer.” 

“She says that a dress ought to be suitable for 
the purpose for which it is intended — ” 

“That is, that there should be a sharp distinction 
between a school dress and a dancing school dress or, 
for a woman, between an afternoon dress and a din- 
ner dress.” 

“Yes. The designer ought to study the use to 
which the dress is to be put and then plan it ac- 
cordingly. Then she ought to make it suit the 
person who is to wear it.” 


THE PAGEANT 


187 

‘^That point seems to be forgotten nowadays when 
grandmothers and mothers and daughters all wear 
the same ready-made dresses. The only difference 
in them is the size.” 

“They ought to be suitable for the age of the 
wearer and for her size and shape. If you put a 
tall woman’s dress on a short, fat woman she looks 
foolish. The lines of the costume ought to bring 
out the good points of the wearer’s figure and make 
you forget her bad points.” 

“That means that your mother ought to wear 
long, flowing lines because she is short and I can 
wear a tunic if I want to because I am so tall and 
thin that I can afford to have a few inches seem- 
ingly cut off me.” 

“Then there’s coloring. I can wear almost any 
color because I’m rather indefinite; I just have to 
be particular about getting the right shade. But 
there are certain colors that Margaret can’t wear 
at all on account of her auburn hair — ” 

“And certain color schemes that she can work 
out splendidly just because of her auburn hair.” 

“Doesn’t she look pretty in that all brown suit 
of hers? And she’s got a dress of a queer shade of 
yellow that is just exactly right with her hair and 
brown eyes. When she wears all those browns and 
yellows she looks like Autumn.” 

“We’ll see you coming out as Madame Helene 
and presiding over a big New York dressmaking 
establishment,” smiled Mrs. Emerson. 

“I don’t believe you will; but I do think there’s 
plenty of opportunity for a real artist in designing 


1 88 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


dresses, and I wish more girls went into it instead 
of into teaching.” 

“Teaching and sewing used to be the only occu- 
pations that were thought to be suitable for women 
when I was young.” 

“That was drudgery sewing — making men’s shirts 
and doing a lot of finger sewing that can be done 
by the machine now in the wink of an eye. But 
the sewing that is worth while cultivating now is 
the kind that can’t be done by the machine but by 
the fingers of an artist. Embroidery and special- 
ized dressmaking like that we’ve been talking about 
— those are the kinds of sewing that make you a 
craftswoman and an artist and not a drudge.” 

“You’ve stowed away all that your teacher has 
told you, I see.” 

“She did tell me most of that, but some of it I 
thought out and then asked her about. You see, 
since that time when I told Mother I wanted to pay 
my board — ” 

“I’m afraid you hurt your mother’s feelings 
then.” 

“Oh, Granny dear, do you really think so? I 
didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t seem to make any- 
body understand until I said that,” Helen paused an 
instant disconsolately. “Any way, since that time 
I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want to do. I 
want to go to college, but I don’t want to teach or 
be a nurse or a doctor. Margaret says she’s going 
to be a newspaper woman or be on a magazine or 
something of that sort. But I seem to be hard to 
suit.” 


THE PAGEANT 


189 

‘‘It’s a long time yet before you have to decide.” 

“I know it Is, but If I decide pretty soon I can 
make all my college work help me toward what I 
am going to do afterwards.” 

“That would be an advantage.” 

“The trouble Is that I like all the homey occu- 
pations; I’d like to be the best housekeeper in the 
world.” 

“That’s a modest wish! However, housekeep- 
ing Is a science in these days of organizing ideas 
and knowledge, and if you want to keep house on 
a large scale it would be perfectly possible for you 
to learn about sanitation and ventilation and so on 
at college and then find a position as housekeeper 
for some charitable Institution.” 

“Or be a sort of teaching housekeeper connected 
with a settlement. I really should like that. If 
you don’t mind I wish you and Mother would visit 
the School of Mothercraft that Is In a cottage half 
way up the hill to the Post Office. I was passing 
It yesterday and I went in, and. Interesting! — well, 
I should say It was !” 

“What do they teach — domestic science?” 

“Not the same kind that other schools teach. 
They teach just what a mother ought to know to 
run her house properly and to bring up her children 
properly. They have babies there and the girls 
who are studying take care of them just as If they 
were responsible for them. They learn how to feed 
them to make them grow, and they learn — Oh, It’s 
the best kind of domestic science you ever knew 
anything about!” 


190 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

Helen was quite breathless when she stopped. 

“Your mother and I will surely go in the next 
time we go up the hill.” 

“The school is in New York in the winter, so we 
can go to see it there sometimes — and I think — I 
really think, Granny, that I’ve found what I want.” 

“I hope you have, dear. It’s an interesting some- 
thing that you’ve found, at any rate. I’m afraid 
the Ethels didn’t wait for you. They went on when 
they saw us talking so earnestly.” 

“Never mind. I’m glad I told you. You see, 
I told Margaret and she didn’t think much of it. 
Just housekeeping seemed too small for her. But 
I think it’s natural and interesting and gives you lots 
of opportunities. If you don’t have a family of 
your own to look after you can help out some other 
woman who has one that she doesn’t know how to 
manage, or I — I really think I’d like to run an 
orphan asylum and be a mother to several hundred 
chicks at once.” 

“If you don’t hurry you won’t learn how to make 
Indian dresses for them.” 

“They’re easy,” laughed Helen. “I expect to 
finish mine this afternoon and make Roger’s to-mor- 
row afternoon and then help on any others that are 
lying about to be attended to. Margaret and I told 
our sewing teacher about the United Service Club 
and she said that she could give us a chance to help 
with these costumes. There won’t be much self- 
sacrifice in it, for she’s going to superintend it all 
so it will be almost like having another sewing 
lesson.” 


THE PAGEANT 


191 

“It seems to me she is qualifying to become a 
member herself if she is giving her time in the after- 
noons to helping out with all these costumes.” 

“I come across people every day who are just like 
that, dear Gran. Chautauqua is the greatest place 
in the world, I believe, for co-operation and helpful- 
ness.” 

“Helpfulness and kindliness and loyalty make up 
the ‘Chautauqua spirit.’ You’ve probably discov- 
ered that that is a very real thing.” 

“It’s what makes everybody go about speaking to 
people they’d just stare at at home.” 

“And finding out that they’re interesting after all.” 

Over her sewing for several afternoons to come 
Helen thought many times of her conversation with 
her grandmother and she was keenly delighted when 
Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Morton went to the School 
of Mothercraft and found themselves as pleased 
with its purposes and its way of carrying them out 
as Helen herself had been. 

“We think we are making a new occupation for 
women out of her oldest occupation,” smiled the 
head of the school. “We are organizing women’s 
natural abilities and the duties that have been hers 
time out of mind in a modern way that will fit her 
to be a good mother and housekeeper in her own 
household or some other woman’s, or to teach home- 
craft to students just as we are doing here. We’ve 
already had more applications than we have been 
able to fill for Mothercraft teachers to go to the 
West.” 

Meanwhile, as Roger had predicted, every part of 


192 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

the grounds was “infested,” as he described it, with 
groups of people rehearsing for the pageant In 
the hall of the School of Physical Education the 
minuet was being practiced whenever the gymnastic 
classes left the floor free for an hour; the reader 
with the Water Sprites and Flower Sprites and the 
bold representatives of the Wind and the Sun fore- 
gathered in the largest room of the School of Ex- 
pression; Indian men and boys stamped and grunted 
in the Boys’ Club, while the Girls’ Club was the scene 
of the squaws’ Dance of Grief. La Salle and Brule 
and Celoron spent an anxious life warily dodging 
the people who wanted to capture them for re- 
hearsals, and only submitted to having their meas- 
urements taken on condition that they should not be 
asked to try on their costumes until the day of the 
performance. It was Helen and Margaret and their 
classmates who were making them but they were so 
absorbed in doing all these extra matters in addition 
to their regular club tasks and pleasures that they 
felt it would only add one more thrill if at this last- 
minute trying-on all the costumes should be proved 
misfits and have to be made over in one day ! 

Nothing of the sort happened, however, though 
there were dress rehearsals at seven o’clock in the 
morning of the appointed day, when early risers saw 
braves in full war paint flocking to the lake front, 
with a tread not as stealthy as it would be at night 
when boots should be exchanged for moccasins. 

The scenes were staged on a large raft anchored 
in the lake before the hotel and girt with low bushes 
so that it looked like an island. The observers as- 



‘^The ^Little Father’ claimed the land ‘With all the .. . lakes 
and streams’” 


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THE PAGEANT 


193 


sembled on the lawn that sloped from the hotel to 
the water, and spread along the pebbly beach. 
Those in front brought camp chairs or sat cross- 
legged on the ground and those behind looked over 
their heads. Strong lights were thrown on the im- 
provised island from electric lights with reflectors. 
Mr. and Mrs. Emerson and Mrs. Morton were so 
fortunate as to secure comfortable and convenient 
positions. 

The three scenes of the First Part represented 
myths of the Indians who long ago used to live about 
Chautauqua Lake. The Spirit of the Lake ap- 
peared in a canoe drawn by invisible power. As 
she landed upon the island the Flower Sprites 
greeted her with singing. 

“Can you make out Ethel Blue?” asked Mr. Em- 
erson, peering through his glasses. 

“It seems to me she is the next to the end in the 
front row,” replied Mrs. Morton. “That certainly 
is Dorothy on the end.” 

Very charming they looked with their flowing 
white robes and their garlands, and very manly were 
the lovers. Wind and Sun, who wooed the Lake 
Spirit to remain on the island. Their wooing was 
vain, however, for the Spirit made them understand 
that she was to give her love only to a new spirit 
yet to come. Mankind. 

The next scene illustrated one of the meanings of 
the word “Chautauqua” — “The place of easy 
death.” An Indian princess, stooping to drink 
from the lake, was drawn down into its depths. 

The origin in the lake of the fish called the mus- 
13 


194 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

callonge whose size and spirit make its capture a 
triumph for fishermen was the subject of the third 
scene, in which Indian braves fishing near the island 
were the central figures. 

The presentation of actual historical facts began 
with the Second Part. 

“I rather suspect,” said Mr. Emerson amusedly, 
“that our young people are going to learn more 
history from this performance than I should have 
been able to tell them.” 

“Helen has been reading about the explorers In 
the library In the College. I imagine she has her 
eye on another history prize next winter.” 

“Here Is what the program says Is going to hap- 
pen. Let me read It to you before the scene begins 
and then we won’t have to bother our heads about 
the story and we can try to pick out our children.” 

“PART IT— 1610-1615. SCENES OF 
EARLY ERIE OCCUPATION 

“Three Erie scouts are seen exploring the coun- 
try with a view of settlement. After satisfying 
themselves that the Island Is safe and advantageous 
they depart, soon returning with their whole tribe. 
Then follows an historical reproduction of an Indian 
village. Tents are set up, fires lighted, fishing and 
swimming Indulged in. The children weave bas- 
kets and play games. All Is peaceful, until an Iro- 
quois scouting party, passing near, shoots the chief 
of the Eries. Instant confusion reigns. The 
braves seize their tomahawks and pursue the enemy 
in canoes. The medicine man attends the wounded 


THE PAGEANT 


195 

chief, the squaws moan in grief, and upon the re- 
turn of the successful Eries with their dead and 
prisoners, the young braves of the tribe indulge in 
a war dance. As the tribe work themselves up into 
a frenzy and bloodshed and torture seem imminent, 
the outburst is quelled and the attention of the In- 
dians is diverted by the coming of Etienne Brule. 

“Brule was a young Frenchman who, in 1615, 
carried a message of peace from Samuel Champlain, 
in Canada, to the Andastes Indians in Pennsyl- 
vania.” 

All the young Mortons except Ethel Blue took 
part in this scene. Roger was one of the three 
scouts, and so was conspicuous enough to be easily 
picked out by his relatives on shore. It was not 
so easy to discover Helen and Margaret Hancock 
in the group of sorrowing squaws. 

“They would be apt to be together; I believe 
they’re both at the right,” guessed Mrs. Emerson. 

There were so many Indian children rolling 
around on the ground and playing with the flowers 
and the dogs that Dicky was indistinguishable until 
the war dance with its shuffle and stamp and muffled 
shout excited him. James and Roger were espe- 
cially ferocious in appearance and in behavior and 
Dicky found himself so entranced with his brother’s 
spirited acting that he himself added a touch that 
caused a roar of laughter from the spectators on 
the shore. 

“Do look at that darling child!” cried one after 
another, and the mother of the darling child tried, to 
look unconscious while she was as amused as any one. 


196 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Do you see?” exclaimed a voice directly behind 
Mr. Emerson. “He’s following one of the braves 
about. He’s imitating every motion he makes. 
Did you ever see such miniature ferocity 1 ” 

“He’s a pocket edition.” 

“He’s the most delightful creature I’ve seen 
in many moons,” said another, and Dicky, as un- 
conscious as a little animal, stamped and shuffled 
and shouted and enjoyed himself to the utmost. 
It was evident that to him the coming of Etienne 
Brule was a sore disappointment. 

Brule’s approach was heralded by the arrival of 
a single canoe paddled by Indians who told that a 
white man was on his way. Then came three canoes 
bearing Brule and his Huron companions. The 
yong man’s calm air soothed the Indians on the 
island and they invited' him to land and to smoke 
the pipe of peace. He told his errand, gave them 
presents, ate with them, and went on his way. 

A period of 55 years was supposed to pass be- 
tween this scene and the next. 

“That will be long enough for Helen and Mar- 
garet to change their dresses,” smiled Mrs. Emer- 
son. 

Again the island represented an Erie camp, and 
again the coming of a white man was reported, but 
unlike his predecessor La Salle arrived in state. He 
was in a large canoe which bore the banner of France 
and he was escorted by six canoes filled with ladies 
and gentlemen of France. Landing on the island 
the “Little Father” claimed the land “with all the 
countries, lake and streams adjacent thereto” in the 


THE PAGEANT 


197 


name of the “Most High, Mighty and Redoubtable 
Monarch, Louis the Fifteenth, most Christian King 
of France and Navarre.” 

After an exchange of gifts the French ladies and 
gentlemen entertained the Indians by dancing the 
minuet. This innovation in the wilderness was re- 
ceived with approval by the red men. 

The Hancocks and Helen and Roger were easily 
distinguishable in the dance, and Ethel Blue, who 
had found her way to her aunt’s side, together with 
Dorothy, who was not able to find her mother in 
the crowd, were delighted over their elegance and 
grace. 

“Ethel and I have almost learned it watching 
them practice,” she whispered, “so if we really did 
do it in the Club next winter we’d only have to train 
two boys.” 

Even longer than between scenes one and two was 
the lapse of time between scenes two and three. It 
was 79 years after La Salle’s expedition that Bien- 
ville de Celoron, escorted by Roger and James, who 
had changed again into Indian costume, and a large 
retinue of other Indians and of Frenchmen arrived 
at the island. 

“They were six days, history says, in making the 
portage from Lake Erie which we make on the trol- 
ley in a little over an hour,” explained Mr. Emerson. 

“They had to cut the forest as they travelled, I 
suppose,” said his wife. 

“And carry 23 canoes and food and travelling 
equipment for 270 people.” 

“It’s no wonder they are languid,” laughed Mrs. 


198 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

Morton as a disembarking youth moved so slowly 
as nearly to overset his craft. 

“Celoron has the French banner like La Salle,” 
cried Ethel Blue. 

‘‘He, too, is taking possession of the country for 
the king. See, the priest is taking the latitude and 
longitude of the 'new land.” 

“What are they doing now? Roger is digging a 
hole.” 

“Celoron buried lead plates in various places 
along his route. The purpose of his expedition was 
inscribed on them. Probably Roger is preparing to 
bury one of them here.” 

This proved to be the case. When the hole was 
ready the plate was placed in it with due ceremony 
and then Celoron made a formal announcement of 
the claim of the King of France, and this section of 
the pageant was ended. 

“Oh, Fd like to see it all again,” sighed Ethel 
Blue, looking about for Ethel Brown as the party 
moved with the crowd up the hill to the Amphi- 
theatre. 

Helen sat and looked and laughed and wept a tear 
or two as the story of “The Little Father of the 
Wilderness” came to its pathetic, triumphant end. 
Yet through it all her heart was light because the 
days of the pageant with all their hurry and labor 
had brought her a glimpse of the future, a glimpse 
of a work that might be hers when she was free to 
choose — a glimpse of a work that would help others 
as well as herself and that would mean a career and 
yet the life of home. 


CHAPTER XVI 

THINK help! 

E thel brown’s head had been turned by 
the praise she received after the fire. So 
many people complimented her on her coolness and 
daring that she began to think that she had done 
something extraordinary. Her feeling was in- 
creased by Ethel Blue’s attitude of humiliation over 
her own terror on that occasion. She told her cou- 
sin frankly that she thought she had been perfectly 
wonderful and Ethel Brown could see that Ethel 
Blue had never forgotten that she herself made but 
a poor showing in the emergency. She did not stop 
to think that Ethel Blue was a far more nervous girl 
than she, and that it was entirely natural for her to 
do without thinking what required a distinct effort 
on the part of Ethel Blue. 

As a result of holding this extremely good opinion 
of herself, Ethel Brown’s manner had become so 
condescending that Mrs. Morton was obliged to call 
her attention to it. It was a painful enlightenment 
for Ethel Brown. She loved Ethel Blue as if she 
were a sister, and she never consciously would have 
been unkind to her; yet not only had she been be- 
having in a way that would not help the more deli- 
cate girl to better her failing but she was becoming 
not an agreeable young person to have about. 

199 


200 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“Oh, Mother,” she sobbed, “I must be just awful! 
What can I do ? Tell me what to do I” 

“The very first thing to do is to houseclean your 
mind.” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“You must first rid your mind of the idea that you 
are a remarkable young woman. You did your duty 
well, but there is nothing so astonishing in doing one’s 
duty that a person need dwell on it forever after. 
Do your duty as a matter of course and then forget 
that you have done it and go on to the next duty.” 

“But it’s exciting to think that you’ve done some- 
thing very well.” 

“If you keep up excitement a long time you get 
very tired of it. If you follow my suggestion you 
have a comfortable feeling all the time. My pro- 
cess is just like housecleaning a room; before you 
clean the walls and floor you remove the furniture. 
When the bare room is fresh once more you move 
in the articles that you want there for use or adorn- 
ment.” 

“Clean out bad thoughts and put in — ” 

“Only such thoughts as you are going to find valu- 
able. For instance, after you have cleaned out of 
your mind the idea that you are very superior to 
Ethel Blue you ought to fill your mind with thoughts 
of helpfulness for her. You must think of all the 
good points she has; think how gentle she is and 
truthful and how brave she is about taking blame 
when she deserves it. You never find Ethel Blue 
failing to admit her responsibility for accidents or 


THINK HELP! 201 

mistakes even when it takes a good deal of moral 
courage to do it.’’ 

Ethel Brown flushed. She remembered times 
when, according to her, accidents had happened 
without any human assistance. 

“You must give Ethel Blue a feeling that you be- 
lieve in her physical courage as well as her moral 
courage. You must always think of her as brave 
and when you talk with her on any such subjects 
you must take it for granted that she Is brave. It 
is natural for a person to try to live up to the opin- 
ion that other people hold of him.” 

“That Is true, I believe,” said Ethel thoughtfully. 
“Is that why you said ‘Dicky Is quite old enough to 
do that errand for me’ yesterday after I had said, 
‘Dicky, you’re such a baby, you’ll never remember 
that’?” 

“It was. If you treat Dicky as a baby he’ll stay 
a baby long after he ought to. He’s not a baby now 
just because Roger has always treated him as a com- 
panion and Helen has let him help her when he could. 
Don’t you remember that Roger went to the Boys’ 
Club with Dicky for three or four days after he 
entered? That was to see how Dicky behaved. 
He didn’t say to Dicky, ‘You’re just a baby so I’m 
going to see whether you act like a baby.* If he 
had said that Dicky probably would have behaved 
like the baby he was told he was. But Roger told 
Dicky that no babies were allowed in the Boys’ Club, 
and the result was that Dicky stood on his own feet 
and met the other youngsters as boy to boy and not 


202 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


as if they were real boys and he was just a baby there 
on sufferance.” 

“I never thought before that we had any influence 
on other people like that.” 

“Once I knew a girl who was rather slow in 
speech. It gave people an impression that she was 
not very bright, and they began to treat her as if she 
were stupid.” 

“Wasn’t she really?” 

“She had a good mind. But after a while people 
outside of her family took up the family’s attitude 
of constantly under-rating everything she said and 
did. The result was that she lost all confidence in 
herself. She believed that if older people in whom 
she had faith thought she was stupid she must be 
stupid; and she was really becoming stupid.” 

“What happened?” 

“Some one suggested that she go to a certain 
boarding school. There no one knew of this 
family attitude toward her and she was treated just 
like all the other girls. It gave her self-confidence 
and as she made one success after another in school 
she developed in every way like a flower in the sun- 
shine.” 

“I’m going to try to help Ethel Blue if I can; and 
I guess you’re right about being more comfortable 
with a house-cleaned mind; I feel better already, 
somehow.” 

“You’ll feel better all the time. Now this coming 
week I want you to see if you can’t be of special help 
to your grandmother. It’s Recognition Week and 
your grandfather and I will be busy with the gradu- 


THINK HELP! 


203 


atlng class every day so we can’t go about with 
Grandmother as much as we usually do. She will 
miss it if she doesn’t have a companion.” 

“I’ll remember. I’ll go whenever she wants me.” 

“You may have to go with her sometimes when 
you’d rather go somewhere with the girls.” 

“I’ll do it. When we got up the Service Club 
we were all telling why it would be good for us and 
I said then that I liked to do things for people just 
for selfish reasons.” 

“You’ll be a Service Club member of the right 
sort when you do kindnesses that you don’t like to 
do.” 

“So far all the services that the Club has per- 
formed have been things that were fun. We 
haven’t been tried out yet.” 

“Here’s your chance, then. There are teas for 
the Dickens Class on Friday and Saturday after- 
noons so you must be on call then while Grandfather 
and I are away. On Saturday evening there is a 
large reception at the hotel for all the C. L. S. C. 
people and Helen is to help serve the lemonade, so 
you and Ethel Blue will have to stay at home with 
Dicky.” 

“What happens on Sunday?” 

“Grandmother will march with her own class, the 
1908’s, and sit with them in the Amphitheatre to 
listen to the Baccalaureate sermon. In the after- 
noon at the C. L. S. C. Vesper Service Bishop Vin- 
cent is to give a special address to the graduates. 
There will be room for others so Grandmother will 
be there and will not need you, but you’d better go 


204 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

home with her after the Song Service in the evening, 
for Grandfather and I will go from the Amphithe- 
atre to the Hall of Philosophy where the Vigil of 
the Class of ’14 is to be held.” 

“The graduates are busy just about every minute, 
aren’t they?” 

“Not on Monday; that day is quite an ordinary 
Chautauqua day; but on Tuesday the class holds its 
annual breakfast. At that hour Grandmother won’t 
want you especially. In the evening she will be re- 
ceiving with her own class in their room in Alumni 
Hall so you will be free to take a table in the Hall 
of Philosophy and help serve the ice cream.” 

“Margaret is trying to arrange it so that all the 
Service Club girls can have tables near each other, 
and the boys are going to hang around and be ready 
to carry the heaviest trays.” 

“Wednesday is Recognition Day and Grand- 
mother will be occupied all day, so you need not be 
disturbed about her.” 

“I’ll look in the C. L. S. C. column in the Daily 
every morning, just as Miss Kimball said that Grand- 
mother ought to do, and then I’ll ask her what her 
plans are.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


RECOGNITION WEEK 


LTHOUGH the young people had but a small 



rL part in the proceedings of Recognition week, 
they took a vivid interest in all the festivities in 
which Mr. Emerson and Mrs. Morton took part, 
and they never failed to notice the rose-bedecked 
men and women whose numbers increased every 


day. 


“Everybody who has ever read the Chautauqua 
Course seems to be wearing some sort of C. L. S. C. 
badge,’’ said Ethel Blue at the table on Saturday 
evening. 

“Only those who have graduated,” explained 
Mrs. Emerson, “wear garnet badges like mine. 
The 1914’s are wearing their class flower, the Eng- 
lish rose, and the new class just forming has an olive 
green bow.” 

“Wouldn’t it be fun if all the 1914 class mem- 
bers from all over the world could be here to grad- 
uate!” 

“What a flock there would be!” 

“How many will be here?” 

“About a hundred and fifty or two hundred. 
That’s a small fraction of the class but they come 
from so many different places that they are fairly 
representative of the whole class.” 


205 


2o6 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


‘‘The rooms were crowded at the reception yes- 
terday afternoon and this afternoon and every trol- 
ley is bringing more.” 

In honor of the 1914 class Helen wore a rose- 
covered dress at the C. L. S. C. reception at the 
hotel in the evening. She carried dozens of trays 
of lemonade and was a tired girl when the chimes, 
belated for the occasion, at last rang out their warn- 
ing. With the rest of the family she was ready in 
plenty of time, however, for an early start to see 
the C. L. S. C. procession march into the Amphi- 
theatre for the Baccalaureate sermon. The Han- 
cocks and Dorothy and her mother took their places 
in the auditorium to see the classes march in, but 
Roger and Helen and the Ethels drifted along be- 
side the troop of Readers, discovering Mrs. Emer- 
son in the class of 1908 and Mrs. Morton and her 
father and Dr. Hancock with the Dickensians. 

In the afternoon the young people followed again, 
this time to the Hall of Philosophy where they stood 
on the edge and heard the Chancellor address words 
of inspiration and comfort to the graduates. Once 
more they stood at a distance when night brought 
the hour for the Vigil of the Class of ’14. Athenian 
Lights flared about the Hall and flung tree shadows 
and the bending shapes of men and women against 
the black earth. Under the classic roof of the tem- 
ple gathered the classmates met here at Chautauqua 
after four years of work done separately. Here they 
united in thoughts of the good the Past had brought 
and the Happiness that the future had in store. 

“Why do they call it a Vigil?” asked Ethel Blue. 


RECOGNITION WEEK 


207 


Ethel Brown had gone home with her grand- 
mother but her cousin could not resist the call of a 
name that sounded mysterious to her, and she had 
come with Helen and Roger. 

“Didn’t you ever read about the young squires 
watching over their armor on the night before they 
received the honor of knighthood?” Inquired Helen, 
who was the “family authority on history and an- 
tiquities,” according to Roger. “They were left 
alone in the chapel of the palace where the ceremony 
was to take plape, and there they prayed that they 
might live worthy lives and do no wrong and al- 
ways help the poor and the distressed and always 
honor women.” 

“We think we are serious nowadays but I don’t 
believe there are many fellows who think as seri- 
ously as that about their life work,” observed Roger. 

The young people had no part in the joys of the 
1914 Class breakfast and “frivol” beyond laughing 
uproariously at the account of It which they received 
later from the elders who were there. In the even- 
ing of Tuesday, however, the Club came out In force. 
At that time the whole Interest of the grounds was 
centred around Alumni Hall. The building itself 
was ablaze with light, every class receiving In its 
own room except the Dickens Class, which had so 
many representatives that It made use of the large 
room at the top of the house. 

Outside, the grounds between Alumni Hall and 
the Hall of Philosophy were bright with colored 
lanterns. In the Hall the band played the jolliest 
of music in one corner and the remainder of the 


2o8 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


space was occupied by small tables crowded with 
people. 

It was here that the United Service Club proved 
its usefulness. As long as there was any one to 
wait on its members ran to and fro carrying trays 
and making change, and when there were no more 
guests they themselves fell to and consumed all that 
was left. 

“I never object to eating ice cream for a Veranda 
Fund or any other reason,” confessed James 
solemnly and Roger nodded a grave assent. 

Before they went on duty at the Hall, the Club 
proceeded in a body to pay their respects to the 
graduating class. There were so many 1914’s that 
they extended all around the large room and before 
them an unending line of people passed, shaking 
hands and offering congratulations. 

Mrs. Morton stood between her father and Dr. 
Hancock before a bust of Bishop Vincent that gazed 
benevolently at the procession as it wound past the 
corner. The children' claimed her as a “sweet girl 
graduate” and Roger greeted his grandfather as if 
he were only an older student in his own school. 

“You youngsters needn’t be feeling so humor- 
ous,” ejaculated Dr. Hancock. “The C. L. S. C. 
will catch you at some time in your life if it has to 
wait until you are seventy, so you might as well read 
the Course as soon as you are out of school, and get 
it out of the way.” 

Behind the Mortons and Hancocks came Dor- 
othy, her thin little face beaming with delight at the 
meeting that was coming. 


RECOGNITION WEEK 


209 

“This is my mother, Mrs. Morton. Mother, this 
is Ethel Brown’s mother and Ethel Blue’s aunt.” 

The hands of the two women met in a long clasp, 
and they gazed into each other’s eyes with instant 
liking. 

“You have been kindness itself to my little girl,” 
murmured Mrs. Smith. 

“We can never forget her efficiency and helpful- 
ness when Father was ill,” returned Mrs. Morton; 
“and, if you’ll allow me to say so, my mother, Mrs. 
Emerson, is a great admirer of yours.” 

“Have I met your mother?” 

“You’ve been teaching her to make wonderful 
embroideries.” 

“Is that Mrs. Emerson your mother? I’ve grown 
very fond of her in her visits to the Arcade veranda.” 

“We must know each other better, if you will,” 
smiled Mrs. Morton as the mother and daughter 
passed on to greet others. 

“Dorothy looks so much like the Ethels that it 
startles me sometimes,” remarked Mr. Emerson, 
looking after them before some one else claimed his 
hand. 

“Girls of that age all wear their hair in the same 
fashion so they look like those paper dolls that we 
used to make in strings out of one piece of paper 
and put over the electric lights in the nursery.” 

“Perhaps it is the hair, but their features cer- 
tainly are alike.” 

“Poor little Dorothy has a wistful expression that 
our children don’t have, I am glad to say. I’.m 
afraid she and her mother have had a hard time.” 

14 


210 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


“Tm sure we must have shaken hands with at 
least a hundred thousand Chautauquans,” groaned 
Dr. Hancock; “don’t you think we might go over 
to the Hall of Philosophy and get the United Serv- 
ice Club to minister to our inner men?” 

“I believe weVe done our duty now; the crowd 
seems to be lessening; let’s escape,” and the two 
gentlemen escorted Mrs. Morton under the lanterns 
to the fire-lit temple where the members of the 
United Service Club hailed them, installed them at 
tables, and did their best to refresh them. 

“Will you put my arm in a splint. Doctor?” asked 
Mr. Emerson, rubbing his shoulder ruefully. 

“If you’ll do mine. We’ll go about like wounded 
twins !” 

At six o’clock the next morning Dicky was stir- 
ring. 

“Helen, get out my white thuit, pleathe, pleathe, 
pleathe,” he pleaded impatiently. 

“Your white suit? What for?” asked Helen 
drowsily. “This isn’t Sunday.” 

“It’s Recognition Day. Don’t you remember? 
Grandfather and Mother are going to graduate. 
I’m in the Boyth Guard of Honor. Pleathe hurry.” 

The Ethels were not much later than Dicky in 
their preparations, for they were to help the young 
ladies who arranged the baskets and made the 
wreaths for the Flower Girls. The Mortons were 
too tall to join the ranks themselves, and they were 
envious of Dorothy, whose lesser height admitted 
her to the band, although this would be her last year. 

It was a busy scene when the girls reached the 


RECOGNITION WEEK 


2II 


top of the hill Ibeside the Post Office. Huge ham- 
pers of flowers lay beneath a table of planks stretched 
on trestles. Around it were grouped a dozen of 
the girls of the Vacation Club weaving wreaths for 
the heads of the little girls who soon began to ar- 
rive, and filling small baskets for them to carry. 
Some of the children were so small that their nurses 
had to come with them. They were put first in the 
long line of twos, while Dorothy and Della Wat- 
kins, who were the tallest of all, were the very last. 
Every girl had a white dress and they made a charm- 
ing picture which drew a crowd of grown-ups to 
watch them. 

Near by was the Boys’ Guard of Honor, Dicky 
among them. Their uniform was a white suit and 
black stockings, and Helen and one or two other 
daughters of members of the 1914 Class were pin- 
ning on with a rose their shoulder sashes of Eton 
blue, the class color. Each boy carried a white 
pennant lettered in blue, DICKENS. They were 
a fine, manly looking lot of youngsters and they, 
too, drew compliments from the onlookers. Roger 
was marshaling them. 

These groups were far from being the only peo- 
ple on the square. Banner boys were bringing the 
standards from Alumni Hall and setting them up 
as a rallying point for the C. L. S. C. classes. 
James Hancock carried the flag of a class whose 
representatives all happened to be women and not 
strong enough to lift the standard with its heavy 
pole. Tom Watkins carried the banner of Grand- 
mother Morton’s class, the 1908’s, because his 


212 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


mother belonged to It. Mrs*. Emerson did not 
march with the 1908’s because she was to pass 
through the Golden Gate after the graduating class. 

Back and forth went the Institution band, escort- 
ing one division and another of the mustering throng. 
All the undergraduates wore oak leaves to distin- 
guish them from the graduates. The hoot of an 
owl rose from a group of 1913’s, who, because they 
were the Athene Class, had taken the sacred bird 
of the goddess of wisdom for their emblem. Other 
classes were choosing cheer leaders and practicing 
their yells with greater or less success. 

“The year numbers on these banners don’t give 
you much idea of the ages of the people under it!” 
laughed Tom Watkins to Helen as she passed him. 

“There’s a 20-year old graduate in 1914 and a 
78-year old,” smiled Helen. “Where are the 
1914’s?” she asked, looking about her. 

“They don’t march with the rest; they gather at 
the Golden Gate at the lower end of St. Paul’s 
Grove,” explained Tom. “The best thing for you 
to do If you want to see all the different parts of 
the procession is to watch the start-off here and 
then rush down the hill to the Chancellor’s cottage 
and see him fall Into the line with the Marshal of 
the Day as his escort. Then go to the Grove and 
see the class pass through the Gate and up the steps 
of the Hall of Philosophy, and then hang around 
the outskirts until they come out and march to the 
Amphitheatre for the address.” 

Helen followed Tom’s advice, waving her hand to 
Dorothy and Della among the Flower Girls, kodak- 


RECOGNITION WEEK 


213 


ing Dicky in the Guard of Honor, and standing 
with the Hancocks while her mother and grand- 
mother and Dr. Hancock, followed in a later group 
by Mrs. Emerson, passed through the Gate. The 
class walked between the Flower Girls strewing 
blossoms under their feet, beneath the arches sym- 
bolizing History, Literature, Science and Faith, be- 
tween the lines of the choir singing a “Hail” of wel- 
come, and up the steps at whose top waited the 
Chancellor. 

Once in the Hall the service of Recognition fol- 
lowed; the tale of the historic C. L. S. C. banner 
was related; five mosaic tablets laid in the flooring 
were dedicated, and then the lines re-formed and 
started to the Amphitheatre. The Boys’ Guard of 
Honor preceded the 1914’s and repeated their yell. 

‘‘Chautauqua! Chautauqua! 

Chau-tau-qua ! 

Nineteen - fourteen ! 

Rah! Rah! Rah!” 

came the shout in the unaccustomed voices of the 
Dickens Class. 

“Show ’em how to do it!” Mrs. Morton heard 
Roger urging his flock In an undertone. 

“Chautauqua! Chautauqua! 

Chau-tau-qua ! 

Nineteen - fourteen! 

Rah! Rah! Rah!” 

rang out the yell heartily from three score unabashed 
juvenile throats. 

“Great!” commended Roger In a half whisper. 


214 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Fine ! Thank you I” responded the Dickensians 
gratefully. 

Along the lake front the long line twisted, ban- 
ners shining, handkerchiefs waving. The moving 
picture man ground his crank painstakingly; kodak- 
ers snapped along the pathway; relatives called out, 
“There’s Mary,” or, in shriller tones, “Hullo, 
Marmer.” 

The marshal of the division preceded the gleam- 
ing white Dickens banner, bearing the class name 
and year; just behind it followed the class officers 
and then the smiling ranks wound once more be- 
tween greeting graduates and the boys and Flower 
Girls into the Amphitheatre. 

With the procession seated in the auditorium the 
young people’s work was ended. The girls and 
boys went off to be refreshed with ice cream cones 
and the older boys rested under shady trees until 
such time as they would have to take back the ban- 
ners to the class rooms in Alumni Hall. 

“It’s a great show,” commented Tom Watkins, 
passing his handkerchief over his perspiring fore- 
head. 

“A feller doesn’t get tired of it if he has seen 
it all his life,” agreed James, falling on to his back 
with his knees crossed high in air. 

“We’ll have to read the Course ourselves so as to 
take part in every section of the performance,” said 
Roger who had disposed of his charges and was not 
sorry to sit down after his unaccustomed duties. . 

Again the young people fringed the Hall of 
Philosophy in the afternoon when the Chancellor 


RECOGNITION WEEK 


215 


gave out the diplomas and pronounced the members 
of the class of 1914 full fledged members of the 
Alumni Society of the Hall in the Grove. 

“What hath Mother done to make her graduate?” 
asked Dicky in a far-reaching whisper as Mrs. Mor- 
ton received her diploma and was applauded for the 
Bishop’s announcement that she had earned ten seals. 

“She has read certain books and magazines faith- 
fully for four years,” explained Helen. “She didn’t 
read a little bit and then say she was sick of that 
book, the way I do sometimes; she stuck right to 
them and read them very carefully, so the Chancel- 
lor has given her a diploma, telling what she has 
done.” 

“When I grow up,” declared Dicky, “I’m going 
to be a Chanthellor and give people diplomaths and 
make ’em laugh and clap.” 

“Mother,” said Ethel Brown in the afternoon 
when Mrs. Morton and Mr. Emerson and their ad- 
miring family had returned to the cottage, “would 
you object if we had a party this evening while you 
and Grandfather and Grandmother are at the 
C. L. S. C. banquet?” 

“What sort of party, dear?” 

“Oh, I’d like to ask the Hancocks and the Wat- 
kinses to supper to celebrate — to celebrate — I don’t 
know just what!” Ethel ended tamely. 

“I think in your own mind you’d like a celebra- 
tion of having finished an unselfish week. Isn’t that 
it? You can make it a celebration for the Wat- 
kinses if you initiate them into the United Service 
Club this evening. Will that do?” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


IN CAMP 

B y the time that the Ethels had learned how to 
swim well enough to induce Mrs. Morton to 
let them go across the lake to the Girls^ Club camp 
the season was so far advanced that they had trou- 
ble in getting their names on the list at all. Dor- 
othy and Della waited to take their turn at the same 
time, and when the Institution motor-boat at last 
carried them over it was the last trip of the season. 

They found the camping ground on the other side 
in perfect order for their coming. 

“Every squad of campers finds all that it needs 
to pitch camp with Immediately, even down to the 
wood to make the camp fire,’* explained Miss Rob- 
erts. 

“See,” cried Ethel Blue, “there It is, stacked up 
for us. Who does it?” 

“The last campers. There was a detachment 
from the Boys’ Club here last night.” 

“They were fine cleaners — for boys,” com- 
mented Della. 

“Boys are good cleaners,” asserted Ethel Brown. 
“Oh, Roger has Army and Navy ideas about neat- 
ness, but ordinary boys aren’t so careful.” 

“On an earlier trip you girls would leave the 
camp in just the order In which you found it, wood 
216 


IN CAMP 


217 


and all. This is the last one, however, so you won’t 
have to chop wood, but everything else must be so 
arranged that the men who come over to dismantle 
the camp will find everything in its place.” 

It was an evening of delight to all the girls but 
especially to Ethel Blue, who had heard her father 
tell of his camping experiences so often that she 
felt as if she were repeating one of them through 
the kind influence of some good fairy who had 
touched her with her wand without her knowledge. 

Pitching the tents was not easy but the girls man- 
aged it under the direction of one of Miss Roberts’s 
assistants. Their united strength was needed for 
that, but when it was done they divided the re- 
mainder of the tasks. Dorothy was one of the 
squad that made the fire. Ethel Brown went with 
the girls who took the camp pails to the nearest 
farmhouse to draw drinking water from the well. 
Della and three others went up the road a little 
farther to a dairy to get the evening’s supply of 
milk. Ethel Blue helped unpack the food supplies 
that had come over in the launch. 

When everything was out of the boat and it was 
chug-chugging away from the shore the campers 
felt that now they were really cut off from home 
even if they were not on a desert island. 

Not one of the girls ever had eaten a supper that 
tasted so good as that prepared in the open air and 
eaten with appetites sharpened by the exercise of 
preparation. Dorothy and three of her companions 
of the cooking class volunteered to prepare the main 
dishes, while Ethel Blue, who had become expert in 


2i8 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


the water, assisted the swimming teacher to give a 
lesson to a few girls who had arrived only a week 
before. At a suitable time after the lesson was over 
every girl was directed to cut a forked stick from a 
near-by hedge. Then they gathered about the fire 
and each one cooked her own bacon on the end of 
the fork. Sometimes the flames leaped up and 
caught the savory bit, and then there was a scream 
at the tragedy. A huge broiler propped against a 
stick driven into the ground held a chicken whose 
skin turned a delicate brown in response to the 
warmth of the blaze. Potatoes in their jackets and 
ears of corn in their husks were buried in the ashes 
with heated stones piled over them so that they 
should be roasted through evenly. The elders made 
coffee by the primitive method of boiling it in a 
saucepan and clearing it with a dash of cold water, 
and they maintained that no coffee with a percolator 
experience ever tasted better. None of the girls 
drank coffee at night, but they all praised the deli- 
cious milk that they had brought from the dairy, and 
started a rivalry of enthusiasm. 

When everything was made tidy after supper the 
fire was heightened to a roaring blaze and the girls 
sat around it cross-legged and told stories. “Br’er 
Rabbit” and the “Tar Baby” seemed just in the 
shadows beyond the flames and if you listened hard 
you could hear the hiss of the water as an Indian 
canoe slipped down the lake in pursuit of Brule or 
La Salle. A folk dance in the firelight ended the 
evening’s amusement. 

Bedtime brought an orderly arrangement of the 


IN CAMP 


219 


sleeping equipment and a quick going to sleep, for 
the girls were tired enough to have fatigue over- 
come the strangeness of their surroundings. 

The Ethels, Dorothy, and Della were together. 
It was at that end of the night when darkness is just 
giving way to the dim light that comes before the 
rosiness of the dawn, that Dorothy was roused by 
heavy breathing outside the tent. A chill of fear 
stiffened her. In the space of an eyeflash her mind 
went back many years to a faraway land where she 
had been roused in just this way by heavy breathing 
outside her window. Then there had been a low 
call and her father had come into her room and ex- 
changing a word or two over her bed with the man 
beneath the window, had gone out doors. Almost 
before she realized that he had gone there was the 
snap of a revolver and a sharp cry of agony and 
her mother had shrieked and rushed out, leaving 
her alone. She was wide awake then and she lay in 
her narrow bed shivering and wondering. 

Her mother came back weeping, and little yellow 
men had brought in her father’s limp body and he 
had lain on the bed for two days, not opening his 
eyes, not stirring, until men came once more and 
carried him away, and she never saw him again. 

She had almost outgrown the nightmare that at- 
tacked her every once in a while after her father’s 
death, but the memory of the whole happening came 
back to her now with the sound of the heavy breath- 
ing. The suspense was more than she could endure. 
She reached over and touched Ethel Blue’s hand. 

Ethel Blue roused and was about to ask what was 


220 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


the matter when Dorothy, scarcely visible in the dim 
light, made a sign for silence. Both girls sat up in 
their cots and listened. Nearer and nearer came 
the sound. It seemed too heavy for a man’s breath- 
ing, — yet — they had been talking about Indians be- 
fore they went to bed — perhaps Indians breathed 
more heavily than white men. No man would come 
at such an hour with a good purpose — perhaps bad 
men breathed more heavily than good men. Ethel 
Blue clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a 
scream. Dorothy crawled down into the bed and 
drew the cover over her head. 

At that instant a roar boomed through the tent. 
Every girl sat up in her bed with a sharp, “What’s 
that?” There were stirrings in the other tents; but 
the roar came again right there beside Ethel Blue’s 
cot, and so near that it seemed in her very face. 

“It’s something awful!” she thought, chilled with 
fright; and then, “I won’t let my imagination run 
away with me. It may not be as bad as it sounds. 
If it does hurt me I can bear it!” 

Slowly she pushed back her blanket and looked 
down whence the clamor had come. The roar was 
followed by a tearing sound and a noise of struggle. 

“Oh, girls,” cried Ethel Blue, “it’s a cow! It’s 
nothing but a cow! Poor old thing, she’s caught 
her horns under the edge of the tent and she can’t 
get loose.” 

Dorothy’s head came out from its covering. 

“A cow!” she breathed with relief and sank back, 
weak but thankful. 


IN CAMP 


221 


“She’s going to pull the tent down!” screamed 
Della. 

“Can’t you shoo her out, Ethel Blue?” asked 
Ethel Brown. “You’re nearest.” 

Ethel Blue was well aware that she was nearest. 
She was startlingly near. But the cow seemed to 
want to withdraw quite as much as the girls wanted 
her to, and that encouraged Ethel Blue to help her. 
Leaning out of her cot she lifted the edge of the 
tent as far as she could with one hand and with her 
slipper in the other slapped the cow on her forehead 
as a hint that backwards was her next best move. 

With a gasp of disgust the invader departed and 
the girls heard Miss Roberts, who had been aroused 
from her tent, driving her away. In fact, every- 
body was wide awake by this time. 

“Let’s get up,” suggested Della. “I’ve never 
seen the sun rise and this is a good chance.” 

Evidently the girls in the other tents were holding 
a caucus to the same effect and there shortly appeared 
a shivering group of campers. Ethel Brown was 
the only one who seemed not to think the happening 
good fun, but she was ashamed to seem cross when 
everybody else was in good humor, and when Miss 
Roberts set her to work on the breakfast prepara- 
tions she soon forgot that she had not made a brave 
showing before the marauder. Dorothy was pale 
but gave no other sign of having been especially 
disturbed. After breakfast came the packing up 
and setting of the camp in order and then two of 
the girls who had been studying signalling, wig- 


222 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


wagged across the lake for the launch to come for 
them. 

“Since we’ve made such an early start we might 
as well go back early,” decided Miss Roberts, “be- 
cause to-night is the exhibition of the School of 
Physical Education, you remember, and those of you 
who are in it will be glad of the extra time for re- 
hearsing.” 

The girls left with the feeling that they had had al- 
most as memorable a time as if the camp had been 
attacked by Indians. Now that it was over they 
were glad the cow had happened in. Ethel Blue 
had a real glow when she recalled that although she 
had been badly scared she had pulled herself to- 
gether and really driven the cow away, and Dorothy 
felt that since her nightmare had once had so laugh- 
able an ending perhaps it would not come again. 

Because of their early rising all the girls took a 
nap in the afternoon. 

“You want to put spirit into your folk dances to- 
night,” Mrs. Morton replied to the Ethels’ remon- 
strances against this hardship. “I want my girls 
to move with life and not as if they were half 
asleep.” 

“Sleep now and you won’t sleep then,” added 
Helen, who was taking the last stitches on a pierrot 
dress which Ethel Blue was to wear. 

The seats in the pit of the Amphitheatre were all 
removed so that the audience was crowded into the 
benches on the sloping sides. The parents of the 
boys and girls who were to take part were present 
in force and the members of the Boys’ Club and 


IN CAMP 


223 


Girls’ Club who were not to take part sat together 
in solid blocks at the front. 

A grand procession of all the participants opened 
the program. 

“There’s Roger,” cried his grandmother. 

“Tom Watkins is with him and James is just be- 
hind,” Grandfather Emerson informed his wife 
after looking through his glass. 

“Some one of those funny pierrots is Ethel Blue, 
but you can’t distinguish her.” 

“She is to march with Dorothy, and Ethel Brown 
and Della are to be together in the butterfly dance.” 

“And Helen?” 

“She is in one of the folk dances. She must be 
in this division wearing gymnasium suits.” 

“Or in the next one; that first detachment looked 
to me as if it was made up of teachers of gymnastics 
who are taking a normal course here.” 

The program continued with a set of exercises 
by the smallest members of the Boys’ Club who 
executed a flag drill with precision and general suc- 
cess, although Dicky wandered from the fold when 
Cupid Watkins trotted his bowlegged way on to the 
stage looking for some member of his human fam- 
ily. Nevertheless, Dicky won the applause of the 
audience by seizing Cupid in his arms and planting 
a kiss on the cross-piece of his muzzle before lead- 
ing him off on his search. 

The butterfly dance was charming, the little girls 
waving in exact time to the music the filmy wings 
that hung from shoulder and wrist. Mrs. Morton 
never succeeded in making out Ethel Brown and 


224 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

Della but the whole effect was delicately graceful. 
Ethel Blue and Dorothy were equally indistinguish- 
able among the pierrots who stamped and whirled 
and stretched arms and legs with funny rapid mo- 
tions. 

Ethel Brown had a part in a dance in which rubber 
balls were bounced in time with a difficult series of 
steps. Helen and Margaret and Tom Watkins 
were in one of the folk dances, and Roger and 
James, with some other large boys and young men, 
illustrated various wrestling holds in a fashion both 
graceful and exact. On the whole, the audience 
seemed to think the program was well worth their 
commendation. 

Into this busy week was crowded yet one more 
event of especial interest to the Morton household 
and its friends — the annual circus of the Athletic 
Club. Roger had been playing baseball on the sec- 
ond team all summer and this team was asked to 
take part in a burlesque game which was to be one 
of the numbers on the program. There had been 
much practicing in private and Roger had come home 
one day with a black eye which seemed to promise 
that when he made his slide for base in the show 
it would be a spectacular performance. 

The baseball teams, absurdly dressed, and taking 
Dicky and Cupid with them for mascots, had a float 
to themselves in the procession that wound about 
the grounds in the early part of the afternoon. The 
Superintendent of Grounds and Buildings led the 
way in his buggy and behind him came a detachment 
of Chautauqua police, one man strong. The spe- 


IN CAMP 


225 


dal features were led by another buggy, this one 
drawn by a mule wearing a pair of overalls on his 
front legs. 

A pretty pink and white float was filled with small 
children from the Elementary School; another was 
laden with a host of Girls’ Club members in the 
pierrot costume of the Exhibition dance. Ethel 
Blue and Ethel Brown were among them, Ethel 
Brown wearing Della’s dress because Della pre- 
ferred to ride with Dorothy on the float with the 
Model Cooking Class. 

James Hancock was in the baseball team with 
Roger but Tom Watkins provided the legs for one 
of the herd of three ostriches which walked with 
dignity behind the floats. The line ended with a 
flock of bicycles all aflutter with ribbons and pen- 
nants. 

The performance was on the baseball field and 
it began as soon as the parade arrived and the 
trousered mule was securely tied. Small boys laden 
with popcorn and ice cream cones went through the 
grandstand with their wares, a policeman wearing 
a badge of giant size kept order, and a solemn-faced 
announcer presented the numbers of the program. 
There were several comic dances, some funny songs, 
a contortionist who twisted himself into such knots 
that the announcer expressed doubts as to whether 
he would ever straighten out enough to leave Chau- 
tauqua when the season was ended, a snappy banjo 
quartet, excellent horizontal bar work, and Roger’s 
baseball team. 

The baseball team took the prize awarded by the 
15 


226 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 


Men’s Club for the best exhibit. The Daily of the 
next morning described their playing as “distinctly 
original,” and mentioned especially the superb slide 
to base made by Roger Morton, who, as short-stop, 
picked balls out of the sky with no apparent diffi- 
culty. 

It was when the Mortons reached home, aching 
with laughter at the jokes which the clown pre- 
tended to get off and didn’t, that they were surprised 
to find awaiting them a telegram from Captain Mor- 
ton, Ethel Blue’s father. 

“Leaving Vera Cruz to-day,” it read. “Reach 
Chautauqua next Thursday. Love.” 


CHAPTER XIX 

‘W BRAVE LITTLE GIRL I” 

T he Mortons had been talking all summer 
about having a family picnic, but there had 
been so many things to do every day for every one 
of the household that there never had seemed to be 
any opportunity. Now, however, all the chief 
events of the season were out of the way and once 
more their thoughts turned to a day out of the 
grounds. 

“Let’s go to Barcelona,” suggested Roger a day 
or two after the circus. 

“What’s Barcelona?” questioned Ethel Brown. 
“Don’t you remember Grandmother told us about 
the fishing village on Lake Erie when we were com- 
ing over on the trolley?” 

“Helen remembers that because there is some his- 
tory about it,” laughed Ethel. “I know she’ll vote 
for Barcelona.” 

“I would — I’m crazy to see it — only it seems as 
if we ought to wait for Uncle Richard to come so 
that he can go with us.” 

Ethel Blue’s eyes beamed affectionately at her 
cousin. 

“He would like it, wouldn’t he?” she said, smiling 
back. 

“Let’s go to Panama Rocks, instead,” suggested 
Ethel Brown. 


227 


228 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“What are Panama Rocks?” inquired Mrs. Mor- 
ton. 

“The strangest collection of rocks you ever saw, 
all jumbled together and cleft into miniature canyons. 
They’re about ten miles from here.” 

“Oh, Daddy would love to see those,” cried 
Ethel Blue so anxiously that no one could help laugh- 
ing. 

“Don’t be worried, my dear. We’ll save all the 
very nicest picnics for your father,” decided Mr. 
Emerson. “We’ll just go across the lake. There’s 
a place over there where we can make a fire without 
getting into trouble, and we can have a hot luncheon 
and take a swim and have a good time even if we 
aren’t out of sight of the Miller Bell Tower.” 

Ethel Blue’s face brightened. 

“How do we get there?” she asked. 

“By motor boat.” 

“Then can’t we trail a rowboat so Roger can give 
me a lesson in rowing? I shall be ashamed to tell 
Daddy that I haven’t learned all summer.” 

“Good work,” cried Roger. “I’ll hitch a light 
one on behind and I’ll guarantee that before you 
come back you’ll know all you need to to pull it. 
You won’t need anything afterwards except prac- 
tice.” 

“And perhaps a little cold cream,” commented 
Helen drily. 

It was the following Wednesday before a time 
could be found that would interfere with no one’s 
plans. On that morning the entire Morton-Emer- 
son family, including Mary, boarded the launch, en- 


“MY BRAVE LITTLE GIRL I” 229 

glneered by Jo Sampson, whose employers, the 
Springers, had been called home before the season 
ended. It did not take long to speed across to the 
other side of the lake and the party was soon near 
enough to the shore to recognize objects at which 
they had been looking all summer from a distance. 

“Those trees aren’t near the farmhouse at all I 
I thought they were right side of it!” 

“The trees in the orchard are full grown. They 
seem like. mere babies from the other shore!” 

“And the barn is a long way from the house! 
Well, well!” 

It was a glorious day with a breeze that made it 
no burden to carry the baskets up the slope to the 
shelter where the materials for making a fire were 
awaiting them. Jo and Roger arranged everything 
in places convenient for the cooks and then Jo went 
to the farmhouse to see if he could find fresh butter 
and sweet apples. Grandfather and Grandmother 
strolled off on a botanizing trip; Mary, who was to 
have a holiday from any kitchen duties, wandered 
into the woods with Helen and Dicky. 

“Here’s a good opportunity for you to give the 
Ethels their rowing lesson, Roger,” suggested Mrs. 
Morton. “Teach them the main points before 
luncheon and perhaps they can do a little practicing 
in the afternoon.” 

“But you’ll be all alone here,” objected Roger. 

“I shall be glad to be quiet here for a while. It 
won’t be for long; some one is sure to come back in 
a few minutes.” 

So Roger and the girls went to the water’s edge 


230 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

and the girls stood on the narrow beach while Roger 
untied the rowboat from the stern of the motor-boat 
and ran it up on the shore. 

“You must learn to get in without being helped,” 
he insisted, “because you’ll have to do it lots of times 
when there isn’t any one around to give you a hand. 
The unbreakable rule is. Step in the middle of the 
boat. If you step on the side you’re going to tip 
It and then you’ll have a picnic sure enough and per- 
haps two drowned pic-a-wf««/V5.” 

“Pic-a-nothing !” retorted Ethel Brown. “We 
don’t care if we do upset. We can swim.” 

“Clothes and shoes and all? I wouldn’t risk it 
just yet if I were you. Now, then, right in the mid- 
dle. That’s it. Ethel Brown on the seat nearest 
the stern and Ethel Blue on the other.” 

Roger pushed off with a mighty shove and crept 
carefully down the boat, steadying himself by a 
hand on each girl’s shoulder as he passed. He 
seated himself in the stern. 

“Which way are you going, goose?” he inquired 
fraternally of Ethel Brown. “Sit facing me. It’s 
a funny thing a sailor’s daughter doesn’t know that.” 

“Now, Roger, if you’re going to tease I’ll get 
some one else to teach me.” 

“I won’t tease you. Don’t stand up to turn 
around; when you make a mistake like that, squirm 
around on your seat. Always keep as nearly as pos- 
sible in the center of the boat. What you want to 
remember is never to give the boat a chance to 
tip.” 

“There are only two oars here.” 


MY BRAVE LITTLE GIRL! 


231 


“One oar apiece is enough to begin with. Put 
yours out on the left side of the boat, looking for- 
ward, Ethel Brown. That’s the port side. Look 
out! ” for Ethel Brown thrust out her oar with a 
circular sweep that would have given Roger a smart 
blow on the ear if he had not ducked with great 
agility. 

“Put yours out on the starboard side, Ethel Blue,” 
he went on when he recovered himself. “That’s 
the right hand side as you face the direction you are 
going. Secretary Daniels has changed ‘port’ and 
‘starboard’ In the navy to ‘left’ and ‘right,’ but you 
might as well learn the old terms.” 

“Starboard, right; port, left; starboard, right; 
port, left,” repeated the Ethels in chorus, as Ethel 
Blue brought her oar into place by raising It straight 
In the air, a movement which brought a “Good” 
from Roger. 

“Ethel Brown Is stroke.” 

“Why Is she?” demanded Ethel Blue. 

“Because she happens to sit nearest the stern 
where all the other oarsmen — meaning you — can 
see her. The stroke oar sets the stroke for the 
other rowers.” 

“When I go fast you must go fast, Ethel Blue.” 

“You can’t go too fast for me,” returned Ethel 
Blue smartly. “Have I got a name?” 

“You’re the bow oar. Now, then, ladles, pay at- 
tention to me. Do you see that piece of wood fit- 
ting In notches nailed across the floor of the boat? 
That Is called a stretcher and you brace your feet 
against it.” 


232 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Perhaps you can, but I can hardly reach it with 
my toes.” 

“Move it up to the closest notch, then. That’s 
the idea. Now put one hand on the handle of your 
oar and the other hand a few inches away from it on 
the thick part” 

“So?” 

“So. You’re ready now to begin to row. Push 
your arms forward as far as they will go and let 
your body go forward, too. That gives you a 
longer reach and a purchase on the pull back, you 
see. Bear down a little on the oar, enough to raise 
it just above the water. When you get the hang 
of this you can learn how to turn the blade flat so 
as not to catch the wind or choppy waves. That’s 
called ‘feathering’; but we won’t try that now.” 

“When I push the handle of my oar forward the 
blade goes backward,” said Ethel Blue. 

“Correct I Observant young woman! When 
you’ve pushed it as far as you can, let it go into the 
water just enough to cover it — no, don’t plunge it 
way in, Ethel Blue! Don’t you see you can’t pull 
it if you have such a mass of water resisting you? 
Get your oar under water, Ethel Brown. If you 
don’t catch the water at all you ‘catch a crab’ — ^just 
so,” he chuckled as Ethel Brown gave her oar a 
vigorous pull through empty air and fell backward 
off the seat. “Hurt yourself, old girl? Here, 
grab root,” and he extended a helping hand. 

“Get these few motions right and you have the 
whole groundwork of rowing,” went on Roger. 
“Forward, dip, pull, lift; forward, dip, pull, lift; 


‘MY BRAVE LITTLE GIRL!’’ 


233 


forward, dip, pull, lift. Keep that up and you have 
the thing done. One, two, three, four; one, two, 
three, four.” 

The new crew pulled vigorously for some distance 
until Roger commanded a rest. 

“Pull your oar in way across the boat and push 
it down until the handle catches in the ribs of the 
opposite side,” he directed, “or turn the blade to- 
ward the bow and run the handle under the seat 
before you. Then it won’t slip out of the rowlock 
and sail off, leaving you to wait until somebody hap- 
pens along to pick you up. You might have to wait 
some time.” 

“How are we going to turn round?” Ethel Brown 
asked when they were rested. 

“Pull one oar and the boat will turn away from 
the side of that oar. You pull, Ethel Blue. See it 
turn?” 

“It’s mighty slow work,” puffed Ethel Blue. 

“And a huge big circle you’re making,” laughed 
Roger. “Ethel Brown can help you by backing 
water.” 

“How do I do that?” 

“It’s the exact opposite of regular pulling. That 
is, dip your oar into the water first and then push 
your arms and body forward. Do you see? That 
makes the boat go stern first instead of bow first. 
Here’s your count; dip, push, lift, pull; dip, push, 
lift, pull.” 

The two girls tried it together and the boat soon 
was going backward as fast as they had previously 
made it go forward. 


234 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“Now we’U try this turning around business 
again,” directed Roger. “Ethel Blue will row the 
regular way; that will turn the boat in a wide circle 
as we saw. Ethel Brown will back water at the 
same time. That will make the boat turn a much 
smaller circle, and in a minute we’ll lay our course 
for the shore. Ready? One, two, three, four; one, 
two, three, four. Now stop backing water, Ethel 
Brown, and row ahead. One, two, three, four,” 
counted Roger patiently until the bow grated on the 
pebbles. 

“That’s enough for to-day,” he decided. “You 
mustn’t get so tired out that you won’t want to have 
another go at it to-morrow. Remember, step in 
the middle of the boat and way out over the side. 
There you are,” and he walked away toward the 
grove of trees where he had left his mother, whis- 
tling loudly and followed by the Ethels’ cheerful 
“Thank you.” 

“It makes you hungry,” commented Ethel Brown. 
“I believe I’ll go and see if there are any signs of 
luncheon.” 

“I’ll be there in a little while. I think I’ll rest 
under that tree over there for a few minutes.” 

Ethel Blue was more tired than she realized, and, 
when she had made herself comfortable, curled up 
under an oak that was separated from the landing 
by a narrow point of land and some tall sedges, she 
fell sound asleep. 

It was perhaps half an hour later that she roused 
sharply at some sound that pierced her dreams. As 


“MY BRAVE LITTLE GIRL!” 235 

she came to herself another scream brought her to 
her feet. 

“Dicky!” she gasped. “Where?” 

She ran toward the landing, but there was no sign 
of him. The sound had seemed nearer to her tree 
she thought as she dashed back to her napping spot, 
but she had been so sleepy that she could not tell 
whether it came from the bushes behind her or from 
the beach. 

The beach? The water? Was Dicky in the 
water? She flew to the water’s edge and strained 
out over the tiny waves that lapped gently in from 
a steamer that had gone down the lake five minutes 
before. 

There it was again — that scream. And there was 
Dicky’s yellow head bobbing up for an instant and 
there was his hand thrown into the air. 

In a second Ethel had slipped ofl her skirt and her 
shoes and was running into the water in her bloom- 
ers. It could not be very deep where Dicky was, 
just beyond the tip of the point. The sedge grass 
must have thrown him down when he started to 
wade. How it happened flashed into Ethel’s mind 
as clearly as if she had seen it and all the time she 
was wading out as fast as she could go. Even now 
it was only a trifle above her knees; if Dicky could 
only get his footing he would be all right — and as 
she thought it, her own feet slipped from under her 
and she fell down a steep under-water bank sloping 
sharply away from the point. 

This was the reason then. But though startled 


236 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

she was cool and fell at once into an easy swimming 
stroke. Her middy blouse hampered her but not 
seriously. It needed only a few strokes to reach 
the eddy made by Dicky’s struggle. She could see 
him clearly and she seized him by the back of his 
rompers. He made no resistance, poor little man. 
All the struggle had gone out of him when she lifted 
him to the surface. 

The point was nearer than the beach and a few 
strokes brought her to it with her limp burden. The 
child was a slender little chap but he was a heavy 
armful for a girl of thirteen and Ethel tugged her- 
self out of breath before she brought him high up 
on dry land. 

“What was the first thing Roger said?” she asked 
herself, and instantly remembered that she must 
turn Dicky on to his face to let the water run out of 
his throat. She bent his limp arm under his fore- 
head and then left him for a second while she ran 
for her skirt to roll up under his chest. As she ran 
she tried to scream, but only a faint squeak came 
from her lips. 

As she flew back she rolled the skirt into a bundle. 
The child still showed no signs of breathing and she 
copied Roger’s next move on that long ago day 
when she had been his subject. Thrusting the roll 
under Dicky’s chest to raise his body from the 
ground and then kneeling beside him she pulled him 
on to his side and then let him fall forward again 
on to his face, counting “one, two, three, four,” 
slowly for each motion. 

Her arms ached cruelly as she tugged and tugged 


MY BRAVE LITTLE GIRL! 


237 


again at Dicky’s little rolling body. Wouldn’t any- 
body ever come? Over and over she tried to 
scream, but she had only breath enough to keep on 
pulling. She was counting “One, two, three, four,” 
silently now. 

At last, at last, came a flicker of Dicky’s eyelid and 
a whimper from his mouth. Ethel worked on 
harder and harder. Dicky grew heavier and heav- 
ier, but she saw dimly through her own half-shut 
eyes that he was opening his and that his face was 
puckering for one of the yells that only Dicky Mor- 
ton could give. 

“You let me alone, Ethel Blue,” he whispered sav- 
agely, and then she lost sight of the water and the 
sedge grass and her weary arms fell at her sides. 

When she opened her eyes again she found a 
heavy coat thrown around her and a face that she 
had not seen for a very long time, smiling down into 
hers — a face that she never forgot, the face that 
flashed before her every night when she said her 
prayers. 

“My little girl!” Captain Morton was saying 
soothingly as he rocked her in his arms; “my brave 
little girl!” 

His brave little girl ! 

“Dicky?” Ethel murmured, looking up at her 
father. 

“He’s all right, dear. Aunt Marion has taken 
him to the fire.” 

Then Ethel leaned her face against her father’s 
shoulder and lay without stirring, utterly content. 


CHAPTER XX 


FOLLOWING A CLUE 

W HEN Jo Sampson came running with a glass 
of hot milk and her Aunt Marion’s instruc- 
tions that Ethel Blue was to drink it at once, he said 
that he was preparing the launch for an immediate 
return across the lake. It was after they were 
packed into the boat and Ethel Brown had squeezed 
the water out of Ethel Blue’s bloomers, that she 
shrugged herself comfortably into her father’s coat 
and propped herself against his shoulder and asked 
if anybody knew how it happened. 

Nobody did, it seemed. Dicky had gone to walk 
with Helen and Mary and when they came back and 
began to busy themselves about the luncheon he had 
slipped away. It was not until Captain Morton, 
who had reached Chautauqua a day earlier than he 
expected, and had followed them across in another 
launch, suddenly arrived and asked for Ethel Blue 
that they noticed that both Ethel Blue and Dicky 
were missing. The first point of search was the 
neighborhood of the rowboat where Ethel Brown 
had left her, and they must have come upon her 
only an instant after she had collapsed, for Dicky 
complained tearfully that “The hurted me and then 
the tumbled down.” 

Ethel Blue was the heroine of the day and not 
238 


I 


FOLLOWING A CLUE 


239 


even her father was prouder of her than Ethel 
Brown, who patted her and praised her without 
stint. 

So great was the disturbance created at home by 
Dicky’s experience which necessitated the calling of 
a doctor to make sure that he and Ethel Blue were 
getting on safely, and so frequent were the runnings 
up and down stairs with hot water and hot cloths 
and hot drinks and dry clothes that it was night- 
fall before Mrs. Morton had a chance to ask her 
brother-in-law how it happened that he had a fur- 
lough just at that time. Ethel Blue had begged not 
to be sent to bed and she was lying in the hammock, 
wrapped in a blanket and holding her father’s hand 
as if she were trying to keep him always beside her. 
The rest of the family had gone to bed or to the 
Amphitheatre. 

“Is my namesake asleep?” inquired Captain Mor- 
ton. “Then sit down and let me tell you why I am 
here. I asked for leave because something had 
happened that made me think that we might perhaps 
be able to find Sister Louise again.” 

“Oh, Richard! After all these years! Have 
you really a clue?” 

“It seems to me a very good one. I was doing 
some inspection work at the time General Funston 
cleaned up Vera Cruz. It necessitated my going 
into a great many of the Mexican houses. In one 
of them — a rather small house in a shabby street — ■ 
I saw on the wall looking down on me a picture of 
my sister.” 

“Of Louise! How could it have come there?” 


240 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“I was amazed. I stared at the thing with my 
mouth open. But I could not be mistaken; it was 
a photograph of her that I was familiar with, taken 
before she was married.” 

“Could you make the proprietor of the house un- 
derstand that you knew her?” 

“Oh, yes; I’ve picked up enough Spanish to get 
on pretty well now. The man said that the original 
of the picture, Dona Louisa, had boarded with them 
several years ago. It took a lot of calculation to 
remember how long ago, but he finally concluded 
that it was the year before his third son broke his 
leg, and that was in 1907, as far as I could make 
out.” 

“Eight years ago that she was there. How 
extraordinary I What became of her?” 

“The story is a tragedy. Louise’s husband — 
Don Leonardo, the Mexican called him — was a mu- 
sician, as you know. That was the chief reason 
for Father’s disliking him. It seems that he had 
wandered to Vera Cruz with the orchestra of a 
theatrical company that stranded there. He was in 
sore straits pretty often. ‘The little girl used to 
cry from hunger,’ my man said.” 

“Poor little thing!” 

“It was the first I knew of there being a child. 
The father finally got work in the orchestra of a 
small theatre and managed to make a few pesos a 
week. That seems to have relieved the situation 
somewhat, but it also brought on Leonard the anger 
of some of the other musicians in town who had 
wanted the ‘job’ that he had secured.” 


FOLLOWING A CLUE 


241 


“He probably needed It more than they.” 

“But he was a ‘gringo’ and they hated him. 
And” — ^with a glance toward Ethel Blue, swing- 
ing gently in the darkness, “and he died sud- 
denly.” 

“Oh, poor Louise 1” exclaimed Mrs. Morton, and 
“Poor little girl I” exclaimed Ethel. 

“Somehow or other Louise managed to scrape 
together money enough to take the child back to 
the States, but there was business to be attended to 
and she left a permanent address with the Sehor 
who had looked after some legal matters for her in 
Vera Cruz.” 

“Did you find him? Did he tell you the ad- 
dress?” 

“I found him, and when he understood why I 
wanted to know he gave me the name of the Chicago 
lawyer whom she would always keep informed of 
her whereabouts.” 

“So you got a furlough and you’re on your way 
to Chicago now?” 

“I’ve been to Chicago.” 

“And the man knew? Did he tell you?” 

“He knew. He told me. Where do you sup- 
pose she is?” 

“I haven’t the remotest idea, Richard.” 

“At Chautauqua.” 

“At Chautauqua!” repeated Mrs. Morton in a 
stupefied tone. 

“Here!” cried Ethel Blue, amazed. 

“Her address is here until September first. I 
hustled right on here, as you may imagine, to catch 

16 


242 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

her before she left. Now the question is, how do 
you find out where people are on these grounds?” 

“There is a registration office where everybody 
Is supposed to register. Of course not every one 
does, but that Is the first place to apply. We’ll go 
there early in the morning.” 

“Of course you come upon hundreds of Smiths 
ever)rwhere, but in a place of this size they may be 
present in scores instead of hundreds. Have you 
met any?” 

“Two or three. There Is a Mrs. Smith in my 
C. L. S. C. class, and there is one who has a cottage 
near the Hall of Philosophy, and there’s Mother’s 
embroidery teacher at the art store — she’s a Mrs. 
Smith.” 

“Do you know the first names of any of them?” 

* “I don’t. Do you know Dorothy’s mother’s 
name, Ethel?” 

“I don’t know. Aunt Marion. I’ll ask her to- 
morrow.” 

“We’ll hunt every Smith to his lair,” said the 
Captain seriously; “and your lair is where you ought 
to be at this minute, young woman. Kiss me 
‘Good night.’ ” 

The next morning immediately after breakfast, 
Mrs. Morton and her brother-in-law started off on 
their quest of the Chautauqua Smiths. Both Ethels 
were eager to go too, but the elders thought that the 
fewer people there were about when the meeting 
took place the less embarrassing it would be for 
their Aunt Louise. 

“If you really do find her here,” exclaimed Helen, 


FOLLOWING A CLUE 


243 

“Roger will have to acknowledge that there is some 
romance left in the world.” 

Mrs. Smith had not reached the art store when 
Captain and Mrs. Morton stopped there on their 
way up the hill, so they went on to the registration 
office and looked through the cards in the catalogue. 

“Here are Smiths from every State in the Union, 
I should say. Warren, Ohio; San Francisco, Cali- 
fornia; Boston, Massachusetts; Galena, Illinois; 
Wichita, Kansas; Bartow, Florida — ” 

“You can’t tell anything from those home ad- 
dresses, for to tell you the truth, I was so excited 
at getting this Chautauqua address from the Chi- 
cago man that I forgot to ask him where she had 
been before.” 

“Let’s try the first names, then. We want L’s, 
whether we’re looking for ‘Louise’ or ‘Leonard.’ ” 

“Here’s ‘Lucy,’ ‘Laura,’ ‘Lester,’ and one, two, 
three with just ‘L.’ ” 

“Those will be the ones for us to try first. I’ll 
copy their Chautauqua addresses,” and Captain 
Morton drew out a notebook with a hand that trem- 
bled. 

In spite of the number being so reduced, the search 
was disappointing. One Mrs. L. Smith lived near 
the College and proved to be a young woman with 
a black-eyed baby who demanded her attention 
imperatively when her callers asked about her 
acquaintances among the other Smiths of the place. 

A second Mrs. L. Smith lived near the fence back 
of Alumni Hall and was as much too old as the 
first Mrs. Smith was too young. The third Mrs. 


244 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

L. Smith was just enough a matter of doubt to Cap- 
tain Morton for him to begin his interview diplo- 
matically. 

“Have you ever been in Mexico?” he asked. 

“Yes,” she answered promptly, though evidently 
surprised. 

“About how long ago?” ventured the Captain. 

“It’s nearly twenty years now. I was about 
twenty at the time.” 

The Mortons excused themselves and continued 
on their rounds. 

“It’s a rather doubtful experiment hunting up a 
person of middle age whom you haven’t seen since 
she was a young woman. With all respect to the 
lady we just interviewed I’m glad she proves to be 
not my sister. But I can depend on your affection, 
Marion, to meet Louise with love no matter what 
sort of person she proves to be.” 

“You may, indeed. And I know she’ll call out 
all my love. In the first place she’s the sister of 
the best possible husband and the finest sort of 
brother-in-law, and in the next place she deserves 
love for the sake of the hardships she has been 
through.” 

“I saw Brother Roger for an hour just before I 
left Vera Cruz and he said that I could depend on 
you to be just as true to his as you were to him/* 

As they passed along the streets they stopped at 
two or three houses where Mrs. Morton remem- 
bered that she had met Smiths or where she could 
make inquiries about Smiths, but every call was 
fruitless. 


FOLLOWING A CLUE 


24S 


“I believe we shall have to start a house to house 
search after dinner. Helen and Roger can help.” 

“We might stop here at the art store again as we 
pass,” suggested Mrs. Morton. 

Just at that moment Dorothy’s mother came down 
the steps of the Arcade. She nodded pleasantly to 
Mrs. Morton, and then glanced at her companion. 

“Richard!” she gasped. “Oh, Richard!” 

“Louise! Is it Louise? Your hair! It’s 
white !” 

Mrs. Morton slipped an arm around Mrs. Smith’s 
waist and drew her across the lawn to the shelter 
of the cottage. 

“I’m so thankful it’s youV* she exclaimed with a 
smile that relieved the tension of the meeting. “I 
like you so much better than any of the other Mrs. 
Smiths we have met this morning!” 

“I guessed, of course, from your boys’ names, 
that you were my brother’s wife,” said the newly 
found sister, sinking into a chair; “but the children 
said there was no chance of their father or their 
uncle coming North this summer, and you never 
had seen me, so I took the risk of staying on until 
the first of September when my engagement at the 
art store ends.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me, Louise ? It would have 
been such a happiness to me — to the children — to 
know. We’ve been defrauded of nearly two 
months’ joy.” 

“I shall be going in a week or ten days more,” 
stammered Mrs. Smith, looking at her brother.” 

“You can tell me your plans later,” he answered. 


246 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

“but don’t look at me as if I were driving you. 
Why, I came up here from Vera Cruz to find you 
and for no other purpose.” 

“You found a clue there?” 

The slender woman seemed to shrink into her 
chair, her high-piled white hair shining against its 
red back and her eyes gleaming with tears. 

He told her how he had come upon her picture. 

“Did the Mexican tell you that my husband was 
shot there? My little Dorothy wakes even now 
in the night and thinks she hears voices whispering 
in the patio under her window, voices of the men 
that called her father out to his death.” 

“We can all help make her happy enough to for- 
get the hard days — and you, too, dear Louise.” 

Mrs. Morton threw her arms around her sister 
as the Ethels and Dorothy came rushing into the 
room from their morning on the bathing beach. 

“Children, there’s good news. Dorothy is your 
very own cousin.” 

“Our cousin?” 

“Really our cousin?” 

“Grandfather Emerson always said our noses 
were alike.” 

“Nothing so good ever happened to us,” and the 
Ethels seized Dorothy and the three went through 
the steps of the butterfly dance with joyous smiles 
that reassured Dorothy’s mother as to her child’s 
welcome into the family. 

“I’m so glad it’s you who are the Aunt Louise 
we’ve wanted to know all our lives,” cried Helen 
softly, kissing her aunt. 


FOLLOWING A CLUE 


247 : 

Roger shook hands with her gravely, feeling him- 
self the representative of his father on an occasion 
of such family importance. 

The Ethels rushed on to the porch when they 
heard Dicky coming up the steps. 

“Dicky, Dicky, weVe got a new aunt! Come in 
and see her.” 

Dicky went slowly into the room for purposes of 
inspection. 

*^That ain’t a new aunt,” he exclaimed; “that’th 
jutht my fire lady,” and he curled up like a kitten 
in his Aunt Louise’s lap. 


CHAPTER XXI 
“who are we?” 

M rs. smith and Dorothy stayed to dinner 
with the Mortons and after dinner the 
younger members of the family party went to the 
beach in front of the cottage while the elders were 
talking in the house. Roger rolled up to the group 
cartwheel fashion as they gathered about the stone 
on which their new cousin was sitting. 

“It’s the most wonderful event that ever hap- 
pened to the Mortons,” he ejaculated breathlessly. 
“I suppose Aunt Louise is telling them in the house 
everything that has happened to her since before all 
of us were born, so perhaps you’ll tell us all the 
happy happenings that have happened to you.” 

Dorothy flushed and Helen, who guessed that the 
happenings of her aunt’s and cousin’s lives had not 
been very happy, hastened to interpose. 

“What we want to know even more,” she said 
tactfully, “is what Aunt Louise and you are going 
to do now. Wouldn’t it be just grand if you could 
live in Rosemont!” 

Dorothy’s face kindled. 

“It would be for me,” she agreed. “I’ve never 
been where there was any one belonging to me, and 
— well, that would be a ‘happy ending’ !” 

“Where was Aunt Louise planning to go for the 
winter?” 


248 


WHO ARE WE?” 


249 


“I don’t know that she had any plans. She 
hadn’t the last time we talked about it, but that was a 
long time ago — way back at the time of the fire.” 

‘Why can’t you both go home with us? We’re 
going in a day or two, you know.” 

“Mother’s engagement at the art store doesn’t 
end until the first of September. She wouldn’t leave 
them in the lurch.” 

“No, it wouldn’t be right,” murmured Helen; 
“but I want her to rest just as soon as she can.” 

“She is tired,” assented Dorothy, thinking as she 
answered how much more tired her mother was than 
any of the Morton cousins could understand. The 
wear of constant anxiety about bread and butter 
and shelter is something beyond the understanding 
of those who have not experienced it. It had made 
Dorothy older than her years and had turned her 
mother’s hair snow-white at forty-two. 

“If only you live in Rosemont,” said Ethel 
Brown, “we can go to school together. Ethel Blue 
and I have been almost like twins. If you are with 
us all the time we’ll be triplets.” 

“Oh!” cried Dorothy, clasping her hands. 

“Do you suppose they’ll tell us what they’ve de- 
cided?” asked Ethel Blue anxiously. “Father will 
suggest something perfectly fine — he always does — 
and it will be like the end of a fairy story. You’re 
sure you’d like to live with us?” she questioned 
anxiously. 

Helen gave Ethel Blue a touch to attract her at- 
tention, for Dorothy was almost crying. Ethel Blue 
threw her arm around her and gave her a hug. At 


250 ETHEL MORTON AT CHAUTAUQUA 

that minute Captain Morton’s voice was heard call- 
ing Dorothy from the house. She jumped up and 
ran in. When she came back a few minutes later 
she was radiant. 

‘‘It’s all arranged,” she cried excitedly. “Some 
money has turned up from somewhere — a lot of it 
— that belongs to Mother, so we can live wherever 
we want to, and of course we’d rather live near you 
people than anywhere else in the world.” 

“All I’ve got to say,” said Ethel Brown, “is that 
this is the finest sort of ending to the finest sort of 
summer. Just think of all the new things we’ve seen 
and done since we came up here, but I think the best 
of all has been starting the Club, because that’s going 
to last.” 

“I believe we’re going to have more fun out of 
that than out of anything we ever tried,” said Helen. 

“I know it; I feel it in my bones,” cried Ethel 
Blue, “and now that Dorothy is going to help us 
with it all winter we’ll just make things hum in Rose- 
mont.” 

Throwing their arms across each other’s shoul- 
ders, the whole group of them marched along the 
beach — one, two, three, back; one, two, three, back 
— chanting in unison 

“Who are we? 

Who are we? 

iWe are members of the U. S. C.” 


The Ethel Morton Books 

By MABELL S. C. SMITH 


This series strikes a new note in the publication of books 
for girls. Fascinating descriptions of the travels and amus- 
ing experiences of our young friends are combined with a 
fund of information relating their accomplishment of things 
every girl wishes to know. 

In reading the books a girl becomes acquainted with 
many of the entertaining features of handcraft, elements 
of cooking, also of swimming, boating and similar pas- 
times. This information is so imparted as to hold the in- 
terest throughout. Many of the subjects treated are illus- 
trated by halftones and line engravings throughout the 
text 

LIST OF TITLES 
Ethel Morton at Chautauqua 
Ethel Morton and the Christmas Ship 
Ethel Morton's Holidays 
Ethel Morton at Rose House 
Ethel Morton’s Enterprise 
Ethel Morton at Sweet Brier I.odge 

Price 6o cents per volume; postpaid 

PUBLISHED BY 

The New York Book Company 

147 Fourth Avenue New York, N. Y. 


THE BOY GLOBE TROTTERS 

By ELBERT FISHER 

12mo, Cloth, Many Illustrations. 60c. per Volume 


This is a series of four books relating the adventures of two boys, who 
make a trip aroimd the world, working their way as they go. They 
meet with various peoples having strange habits and customs, and their 
adventures form a medium for the introduction of much instructive 
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through which they pass. A description is given of the native sports 
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books are illustrated by decorative head and end pieces for each chapter, 
there being 36 original drawings in each book, all by the author, and four 
striking halftones. 

1. From New York to the Golden Gate, takes in many of the prin- 
cipal points between New York and California, and contains a highly 
entertaining narrative of the boys’ experiences overland and not a little 
useful information. 

2. From San Francisco to Japan, relates the experiences of the two 
boys at the Panama Exposition, and subsequently their journeyings to 
Hawaii, Samoa and Japan. The greater portion of their time is spent 
at sea, and a large amount of interesting information appears throughout 
the text. 

3. From Tokio to Bombay. This book covers their interesting 
experiences in Japan, followed by sea voyages to the Philippines, Hong- 
kong and finally to India. Their experiences with the natives cover a 
field seldom touched upon in juvenile publications, as it relates to the 
great Hyderabad region of South India. 

4. From India to the War Zone, describes their trip toward the 
Persian Gulf. They go by way of the River Euphrates and pass the 
supposed site of the Garden of Eden, and manage to connect themselves 
with a caravan through the Great Syrian Desert. After traversing 
the Holy Land, where they visit the Dead Sea, they arrive at the Med- 
iterranean port of Joppa, and their experiences thereafter within the war 
zone are fully described. 


THE NEW YORK BOOK COMPANY 

147 FOURTH AVENUE NEW YORK 



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